Our Happily Sometimes Ever After
by Sassylou
Summary: This is just a bunch of drabbles about Suze and Jesse's life, their happily ever after. It's mostly going to be fluff, so if you're looking for a lot of drama, it's not going to be here. And it's going to span quite a few years. It's rated M just because there is a lot of suggestive stuff; you know how Suze is . Hope you enjoy it!
1. Chapter 1

**So, this is my fanfiction about Suze and Jesse. I've replaced this first chapter. All of the content is the same, I just added the notes at the top. **

**Please be kind on your reviews. I've never written a fanfiction before, and I've been trying my hardest to keep everything within the character's personalities. I will gladly accept constructive criticism. **

**I do not own the characters! They belong to Meg Cabot. There will be characters introduced later on that are entirely my own, but I'll let you which ones are mine. Enjoy!**

**Oh, by the way, Jesse is twenty-two, and Suze is eighteen. I'll give their ages at the beginning of each chapter.**

Eighteen. It's a great number. I am now legally an adult. How awesome is that? I can pretty much do whatever I want, including get a little hot and heavy with my boyfriend, if you know what I mean. Since it's not illegal anymore.

Except, of course, that my boyfriend has some very old-fashioned morals. You know the kind. He's the we-have-to-keep-ourselves-pure-for-marriage-because-that's-how-it's-supposed-to-be type.

I guess that's what I get for falling in love with a guy who was born in 1830. Yep. You read that right. My boyfriend is 172 years old - but he only looks 22, thank goodness. And no, he's not a vampire. Believe me when I say that vamps are _so _not real. No, Jesse used to be a ghost - until I accidentally brought his body back from 1850, which is when he died - to now.

It's complicated.

Anyway, now Jesse's alive, and we've been dating for about a year now. Father Dom was able to get him a birth certificate and everything - apparently, the Catholic church is pretty talented at that stuff. Jesse's even got his own car and apartment. Nothing fancy, of course. He drives a little Suzuki and his place has just one bedroom, which Jesse uses _only _for sleeping, no matter how many times I try to show him the _other _use for a soft bed like his. He won't let me sleep over, ever, even if I promise to behave. He just laughs when I say that.

Whatever.

"Susie!" my mother yelled up the stairs, just after the doorbell rang. I snatched my purse and hurried downstairs, a smile already on my face.

I got there just as my mother closed the door behind Jesse. He nodded his head in her direction, ever the gentleman. "Thank you, Mrs. Ackerman."

Hector "Jesse" de Silva. He is the personification of perfect, let me tell you. Which is pretty impressive if you think about it. I mean, the guy was alive way before plastic surgery had been invented.

"You're drooling," Jake noted, walking through the room.

I scowled, even though he hadn't said it with any malice or anything. "I am not," I snapped.

Jesse, hearing my voice, looked up. That special smile pulled at his lips, the smile he uses on just me. "Susannah. You look beautiful."

"Thanks."

"Happy birthday."

My smirk widened. You see, I had a plan. I was going to get him into bed, if it was the last thing I did. He saw my leer, and - since he knows me so well - shook his head once, sighing. I gave him my best innocent look.

He didn't buy it.

Hey! That was good! I should so totally get an Oscar for that.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah, let's go."

"Be home by eleven!" Andy, my stepfather, called. A moment later, he appeared in the living room.

I rolled my eyes. "Midnight," I argued, even though I planned to try to stay the night at Jesse's. I was sure I could talk Mom into it.

Maybe.

Anyway, it's not like Andy was serious. He was having a hard time keeping a smile off his face, like he knew something that I didn't. He loved Jesse. My whole family did. Well, maybe not Brad. But Brad's an idiot. "Fine. Jesse, you better have her home by midnight. Or you're both in trouble."

I didn't believe it for a second. It was summer vacation! I didn't have to work tomorrow. Why was he even pretending? And they both knew Jesse was too honorable to try anything, though I was trying to change that.

Rolling my eyes again, I opened the door. "Okay, okay, Andy." I dragged my boyfriend outside, where I laced my fingers through his. Jesse isn't a huge fan of PDA, but he doesn't mind hand-holding. Especially when it's eight at night, and the sun is just starting to go down.

"So, where are we going?"

He grinned, opening the passenger door for me. I allowed him to, since it means so much to him. "It's a surprise."

"Jesse," I whined.

He ignored me, getting into his own seat. I slumped in my seat. "Fine. Be that way."

We rode in silence. I kept sneaking glances at him. I was still amazed that I had ended up with this perfect man. What did he see in me? I mean, I knew I was pretty - hey, construction workers had shouted things at me plenty of times. But people tended to think that I was a little intense. Okay, maybe more than just a little. Apparently, I scare a lot of guys senseless. But Jesse, he loved me. I knew he loved me.

"Susannah."

I broke out of my little trance and looked at Jesse, my hot boyfriend. He was smiling. "We're here, _querida_."

Am I pathetic, or what? That word never fails to make my heart melt. "Your place?" I asked, seeing that we were parked in front of his apartment building.

He nodded. Holding hands again, we made our way into his neat apartment. I didn't understand it. Jesse kept his CDs and DVDs and books orderly on their shelves. But when he was sharing a room with me, did he ever bother to pick up after himself? No. Of course not.

Men.

"This way." He led me into his kitchen, where he had set his small table. There was a red tablecloth over it, with two lit candles in the center. Two plates were set out, and something smelled really good.

"Jesse, this looks great. What did you cook?"

"Pisto Manchego. It's a Spanish dish."

Let me just say now that Jesse? Yeah, he makes really good Spanish food. Two of his younger sisters, Anarosa and Sierra, loved to practice their cooking skills. And they would force Jesse to help them, whenever their mother was unavailable. Jesse, being the loving brother he was, had allowed them to do this. How could he say no? Anarosa had only been six, and Sierra seven. And am I happy that he did! I love his food. My mom and I, yeah, we're not so good in the kitchen.

I sat down, watching Jesse as he dished the food onto our plates. "Wow, Jesse. You know, you really didn't have to go through all of this trouble." Although I wasn't going to deny that I was enjoying the attention.

"Susannah. I love you and it's your birthday. I wanted to do this, for you."

I looked down, blinking rapidly. I was _not _going to cry over that little comment. Sure, it was totally romantic, but come on! I am Susannah Simon! I don't cry.

"I love you, too, Jesse."

We fell silent then, eating our food. Andy was a great cook, but when it came to Spanish meals, Jesse took the prize. He was amazing.

I noticed, close to the end of the meal, that Jesse kept fidgeting. What was he worried about? That I wouldn't like the food? As if.

Was he thinking of taking our relationship to the next level? Was he - finally - going to put aside his nineteenth century morals and have his wicked way with me?

"Jesse," I began slowly, struggling to keep my voice neutral. Jeez, I didn't want to sound _desperate _or anything. "What's wrong?"

"What?" he asked distractedly. "Oh. Nothing is wrong, Susannah."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Then I set my fork down and folded my arms over my chest. "Bull. Tell me what's wrong, Jesse de Silva."

Sighing, he set his own fork down. "I. . .I just. . ."

Okay, he was so not trying to get into my pants. I started to get a little worried. This was so unlike my Jesse. My Jesse is a very confident man. He just doesn't get nervous easily. I slid off my chair and approached him. He immediately opened his arm, allowing me to settle comfortably in his lap. I rested my head against his chest.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong, Susannah. I assure you."

"Then what's going on?" For one horrible moment, I thought he was going to break up with me. What if he'd realized that I was too intense? What if he was tired of always having to help me with my lovely ghost guests? What if he had found someone better, someone more beautiful, whose hair didn't get totally ruined in the rain? What if he -

"I love you. _Querida_, you are my world. I have a chance to live again, because of you." He softly gripped my face, staring into my eyes. I almost got lost in his liquid brown orbs. "I owe everything that I have to you, Susannah. Every day, I am grateful for the live you have given me. Every day, I am grateful for the chance that I have to love you."

Can I just say that I was getting extremely uncomfortable under his intense stare? I couldn't look away, even though that was all that I wanted to do. It was unnerving. "Um. . ."

What he did next surprised me. He closed the gap between our faces and kissed me. Hard. Now, I was enjoying this immensely. I love Jesse's kisses. But usually I was the one who initiated the passionate making out - unless he just wanted to get me to shut up.

I was surprised, but I sure wasn't complaining. I pressed myself closer to him, slipping my tongue into his mouth. His anything-below-the-neck-is-off-limits-until- after-the-wedding rule forgotten, his hands found their way under my sweater set.

He shifted a little bit, then reached into his pocket for something. His lips moved against mine, not just kissing me, but speaking. I struggled to focus on what he was saying.

"Susannah Joy Simon, I never want to spend a single day without you, as long as I live." I held my breath, afraid to look and see what he was holding. He wasn't. . .He couldn't be. . ."Will you do me the greatest honor of becoming my wife? Will you marry me?"

I looked up sharply, letting my breath out in a whoosh. He was holding a small velvet box open, staring at me. Waiting for an answer. It was so simple, the ring. Just a single, .50 carat diamond set into a 14k yellow gold band.

I loved it.

Honestly, I won't even try to deny that I cried. I bawled. This was worse than the whole episode with David and his mom. With shaking hands and blurry eyes, I took the box from him. I stared at the ring.

"Susannah? I know that it's not much. I will get you a different one, if you want something more fancy -"

He didn't get to finish that sentence because I had taken the ring out and slammed it onto my finger. Then I kissed him. "It's perfect," I whispered against his lips. I pulled back, smiling at him. "Of course I'll marry you, Jesse."

He smiled. "You will?"

I was so happy, I couldn't stop smiling. I had never imagined myself engaged at eighteen, still in high school, but it seemed so right. Being engaged to Jesse, I mean. It was perfect. "Duh," I told him.

"And you like the ring?"

"Jesse, I love it. Thank you." And I kissed him again.

And that, folks, is how I ended up staying the night with my boyfriend - excuse me, fiance. Oh, calm down. We didn't do IT. The guy is never going to get rid of his nineteenth century ways. Seriously. No matter how much I told him that it's okay now, since we're _engaged_, he just ignored me.

So instead, to celebrate our new engagement, we put in a movie. You guessed it. _The Godfather_. But hey, I loved the guy. I'd let him watch his silly movie if that made him happy. And he'd just made me the happiest woman alive, so it was only fair, really.

Of course, we didn't get very far into the movie because my mom called. That's right. My mother called. And not my cell phone to talk to me - which I just got last month. Oh no, she called _Jesse's _phone, to talk to _him_.

Jesse, who had answered the ringing device before I could get to it - he didn't like the way I teased most of his new college buddies - said, "Hello?"

It was my mom, I found out later. He gave me a loving smile in response to whatever she'd said. "She said yes, Mrs. Ackerman. She's wearing it now."

Really? What did she think I would say? It was _Jesse_!

Whatever my mom said next, it must have startled him. A slight blush rose to his cheeks. "Well, we hadn't actually discussed that yet. We were watching a movie. It is getting late." He smiled tightly then, narrowing his eyes at me.

I was in trouble. I knew that look. But why would I be in trouble? I hadn't _done _anything, that I knew of! What could they possibly be talking about, for him to give me that look?

"You have nothing to fear on that front, Mrs. Ackerman. I will make sure that nothing happens. Good night, ma'am."

And with that, he hung up. He pointed a finger at me. "You," he said sternly.

"I didn't do it!" I immediately answered, and then I wanted to slap my forehead. _Way to go, Suze,_ that little voice in my head said again. _Way to sound totally guilty._

Jesse lifted an eyebrow - you know, the one with the scar in it - at me. "I want you to behave tonight. Your mother thinks that it would be best if you stayed over tonight, since it's gotten dark out and she thinks that I might be too tired to drive you home."

I couldn't help but smirk. I was allowed to stay the night! And the best part was that my mother had _suggested _it. I didn't even have to ask.

"Susannah."

"What?" I was instantly defensive because of his warning tone. "I promise I'll behave."

He shook his head. It was clear that he didn't believe me. "I will sleep on the couch tonight. You can have my bed. So you can't tempt me."

I scoffed. Like I would do that.

Much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much to Nono for your review! I appreciate it.**

**Here's another chapter. I hope that the time jumps aren't confusing. Again, I do not own any of the characters in this chapter. They are all the wonderful creation of Meg Cabot.**

**Their ages are the same as the last chapter!**

Do you know what people think when you get engaged in high school? That you're pregnant. I'm not even kidding. Seriously? But the only reason I even knew they were saying it was because CeeCee had overheard something. At least my classmates had learned to speak carefully about me.

"It's just ridiculous," CeeCee was saying, as we met with Adam at our table. "As if you would be willing to do anything to _get_ pregnant. Well, you might. But Jesse? No way."

"Hey!" I objected. "Like you and Adam _haven't_ done anything?"

She and Adam just smirked. Yeah. That's what I thought. I shrugged my shoulders. "Whatever. They'll realize in a few months that I'm obviously _not_ pregnant. And if I hear anybody say anything about it, I'll take care of it."

"By pulverizing them?" CeeCee suggested mildly.

"Now, CeeCee. You know I don't condone violence," I told her in my sweetest voice.

She and Adam laughed. "Good one, Suze. Good one."

"_Querida_."

I turned, smiling at that voice. "Hey, Jesse," I said, flipping my hair. "What are you doing here?"

He grinned. "Am I not allowed to tour the Mission Academy? It is said –"

"Oh, shut up, Jesse," I told him with a laugh, lightly pushing at him. "Why are you really here?"

"I needed to speak to the Father about something. And then I saw you here, and I thought I would come talk to you as well."

Somehow, I knew exactly what he had wanted to talk to Father Dom about. We did tend to think along the same lines most of the time. And we had, if only briefly, discussed it. "Did he say yes?"

"He did. He said he would be delighted. He is quite honored."

Adam stared at us. "It's a little creepy, the way you two talk. And what's up with you and Father Dom, anyway?"

"He's a nice guy," I said.

He shook his head, then smirked at my fiancé. "So. I heard you and Suze had a little fun this summer vacation. I guess you didn't _expect_ a little –"

"Adam!" I cut in, glaring at him.

CeeCee rolled her eyes and said, "You are such a dweeb. That was your worst pun yet, Adam."

"Hey. You can't just call your boyfriend a dweeb."

"I just did, dweeb."

"Susannah." I looked up at Jesse, grateful for the distraction from Adam and CeeCee's argument. "What is Adam talking about?"

"Um, well. It's nothing, really. Don't worry about it."

He didn't say anything, just lifted that eyebrow.

"Okay, listen. Some people are saying some things, but it's not a big deal."

"Not a big deal?" a familiar voice asked. Paul. "Are you saying that you're not excited for your little bundle of joy, Suze?" Paul asked, patting my stomach.

We may be somewhat friends now, but I didn't have to put up with anymore of that bull. "Oh, shut up. What they're saying is not true."

"Susannah, what is not true?"

Oh, why did I say anything? I'm such an idiot. Now I had to tell him, because if I didn't, then Paul would. Paul's not the evil, spawn of Satan that he used to be, but he's still...Well, Paul. "Thanks a lot, Paul," I muttered darkly.

He smirked, winking one blue eye at me. "Anytime."

I sighed. "Okay. Here's the thing. I've been back in school for two days now."

"Yes. I know this."

"Well, and everybody knows about our engagement. Which is totally cool. I mean, Kelly is so jealous because I'm going to marry you. And we all know that you're like, the hottest guy in Carmel. Not to mention the fact that you're going to be a rich doctor. She _so_ wishes she were in my place right now. You should have seen her face when she saw the ring. It was –"

"Susannah."

"Oh, right. Sorry. Anyway, some rumors have started, about the reason that we're engaged so young."

Jesse frowned. Oh, jeez. He didn't get it. He so didn't get it. "We are not engaged that young, Susannah."

"Maybe that's not too young where you're from, de Silva," Paul remarked, "but here, _now_, a lot of people tend to wait until after college, or at least until they get done with high school."

Adam said, "I don't get it. I thought Jesse _was_ from around here." I heard a muffled yelp, and then CeeCee told him to shut up. He, of course, didn't know that Jesse was from a completely different time period. CeeCee knew. But Adam didn't.

"Do you want to wait, Susannah, until after college?"

"No!" I objected, probably with a little more vehemence than was necessary, if the stares I was getting was any indication. Hey, I didn't want to still have my V-card for that long! Jesse was on his way to becoming an ER doctor. Do you even know many years of college that is? Eight! And then he has his residency after that, and that could take up to seven years. No thanks. The sooner we get married, the better.

"No," I said again. "The wedding stays the same. June of next year. Jesse, I don't care what they think, I really don't." I was used to being a freak of nature. What difference did it make if they thought I was a pregnant freak of nature?

He nodded, content – at least for now – with my answer. "So what exactly were these rumors that have been started?"

"Well, people seem to think that I might be...pregnant."

I don't think he would have looked more surprised if I'd stuck a fork in him. "With child?"

"Yeah, that's what they think. Which is stupid because we –" I broke off right there. No way was I going to finish that sentence in front of Paul and Adam. Just no way.

Jesse, as I'd pretty much figured he would, started ranting. And as usual, his rant was in Spanish. Paul leaned against the bench to watch my fiancé pace, an amused smirk on his face. I waited for Jesse to lose a bit of steam before I said anything.

Finally, I felt that I could safely cut in. "Jesse, calm down."

"Calm down? Susannah, I cannot calm down. To think that you would..." And he was off again. In Spanish, again. It couldn't have been nice things he was saying. First of all, Paul was getting a kick out of it. And secondly, the word _querida_ was never mentioned.

Why had I always taken French? Seriously? Who speaks French in this country?

"Hey, amigo, chill," Paul drawled. "They'll forget about it soon. They're idiots, first of all. And secondly, she's not pregnant. They'll notice that when she doesn't _get_ a pregnant belly."

"Jesse," I said, before he could go totally ballistic. "Listen, don't worry. They'll shut up soon enough. Really. Just worry about your classes. Don't you have Ethnic Studies in an hour?"

He scowled at that. "So I can sit and listen to that _idiota_ Joseph patter about how we should reinstate slavery?" He shook his head, disgust stamped across his face. Jesse, like his uncle Ricardo, has always hated the idea of slavery. He also can't stand his classmate, Joseph Morgan, who is always saying something stupid.

"Yes. So you can do that."

He sighed. "I suppose I must..."

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, before he could stop me. Since we were in public, he pulled away almost immediately. "Goodbye, Susannah," he said, turning away.

"Hey, Jesse? You're still coming over for dinner tonight, right?"

"Of course, _querida_."

He gave me one last smile and then got into his car and left. "So what exactly did your lover boy have to ask Father Dom?" Adam asked.

"We want him to be the one to marry us."

"Oh. Why? I mean, the guy's nice and all, but he's our _principal_. Don't you think that's a little weird?"

I lifted my chin. "No. It wouldn't be weird back in New York."

Paul snorted in derision, shaking his head. "Whatever, Suze. See ya." And he left. Probably to go make out with Kelly before lunch was over.

Okay. So I was totally lying. Big deal. Like I could explain the complicated relationship Jesse and I had with Father Dom. They wouldn't understand. Well, CeeCee might. I hadn't exactly told her that Father D. was a mediator, too, but I think she's put it together.

But Adam didn't need to know that having your high school principal be the officiant at your wedding was so not normal anywhere in the United States.

**I hope you enjoyed that chapter. Sorry it's a little shorter than the first one. I've decided to add something else to each chapter. A little conversation between some of the characters, that has to do with the chapter itself. Also, I won't write the translations for what Jesse says in Spanish. It won't be very much, and most of it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.**

**David: Suze! Suze, all the kids at school are saying that -**

**Suze: Yes, David, I know. They all think I'm pregnant.**

**David: But you aren't, right? I mean -**

**Suze: No. I'm not. They're just stupid.**

**Brad: Suze! You got yourself pregnant! I'm telling Mom and Dad!**

**Suze: I'm no-**

**Jake: What? You're pregnant? Where's Jesse? I'm gonna to kill him!**

**Suze: Whoa. Down, boy. I am not preg-**

**Helen: Did I just hear that someone said my Susie is pregnant? Susie, I am very disappointed in you. I know I raised you better than that.**

**Suze: Mom, I'm not -**

**Andy: Jesse is a dead man!**

**Suze: (sighing) Not again. I AM NOT PREGNANT! It's a stupid rumor. And it's not true.**

**Everyone: Oh.**

**Andy: Well, I guess I won't kill Jesse, then.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay, here's chapter three. For those of you who love fluff as much as I do, here's the wedding scene. **

**Jesse is now twenty-three, and Suze is still eighteen. **

**Since I don't remember Meg Cabot ever saying what months their birthdays in, I decided that Jesse's is in March, and Suze's is in September. If anybody has heard any differently, please let me know. **

The biggest day of my life was here, finally.

I was marrying the man of dreams.

Not that, even a few years ago, I had ever dreamed that a man as hot and perfect as Jesse would be mine. For once in my life, I was glad that I was a mediator. Because if I wasn't, I would never have met him. Jesse, I mean. For once, I actually saw my gift as just that. A gift.

"Oh, Susie," my mom gushed, rushing into my room. She blinked rapidly. "Suze, you look beautiful. Jesse's a lucky man."

I smiled. "Is everything ready? Is the limo here?" I know, right. A limo! Mom and Andy had found a really good deal on one, so I get to arrive and leave at my wedding in style, in a white limo.

"Everything's ready." She pulled me into a hug, careful not to mess up my hair or anything. I mean, it had only taken us about three hours to get it perfect. "I just can't believe you're getting married. You're only eighteen."

"Yeah, but girls mature faster than boys. So really, I'm more like twenty-five. I really do love him, Mom. I know what I'm doing."

She smiled sadly at me. "I know. I've never seen you so happy, Susie, not since Daddy died."

That was the only thing that dampened my spirits today. My dad wouldn't get to walk me down the aisle. I knew he would be there, but I wouldn't be able to see him.

Not this time.

"California was the right place for me." I kissed her cheek. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For moving me three-thousand miles across the country and making me leave behind Grandma and Gina," I said, laughing.

She laughed with me. "Well, you're welcome."

I wasn't resentful. Not anymore. I was so glad that I'd moved to Carmel-by-the-Sea. And Gina was moving out her, so I would get to see her a lot more. And yeah, a lot of that was so that she could be closer to Jake – honestly, what does she see in him? – now that they were officially dating.

Ew.

I got to my feet. "Let's go."

She helped me down the stairs, and then we climbed into the limo where my three bridesmaids were waiting. Gina, CeeCee, and Shannon. Gina looked me up and down, smirking. Then she looked at CeeCee. "We did good. That satin number fits her perfectly."

"It does."

I sort of spaced out as we drove to the beach. I wondered what Jesse would think of my gown. The V neck was probably lower than he would be entirely comfortable with. Other than that, it wasn't very revealing. It didn't even have a slit.

Then I wondered where we were going for our honeymoon, since he wouldn't tell me anything. I had a feeling it was Spain, though. I might have, maybe, accidentally seen something I shouldn't have, while I was at Jesse's one day.

Okay, okay. I knew for a fact that we were going to Spain. Let's just say that it's never a good idea to stay logged into your email account when your extremely curious fiancée is around. But he didn't know that I knew.

"Simon, snap out of it. We're here."

I felt myself grin as I turned to look at Gina, in her purple dress. We'd found a rich purple that didn't clash with her orange hair. "You know, you won't be able to call me that in a couple of hours."

"I know. It'll be de Silva. That's just not as cool."

"Whatever."

We got out of the limo and made our way to the small pavilion where the wedding procession would start. Andy, who was waiting with the groomsmen, smiled at me. "Hey, kiddo. You ready?"

"Yeah."

He linked his arm through mine. Mom gave me a last kiss and went to take her seat. A moment later, the music started. David and his girlfriend, Shannon, walked down the aisle in the sand. Then CeeCee and Adam, followed by Gina and Martin, Jesse's Best Man – they met the first day of college, and have been best friends since.

And finally, Andy and I began walking. I saw Jesse's eyes light up when he saw me. He looked so good in his "monkey suit," as he called it. This was really happening.

Andy placed my hands in Jesse's, then he sat down. Father Dominic smiled happily, probably delighted that Jesse and I had made it to the altar without me using my "womanly wiles" to seduce Jesse.

I barely heard what Father Dom was saying. I was too focused on my Jesse. He was looking at me, a loving smile on his lips. I immediately got lost in his deep eyes. I couldn't believe how lucky I was. I was going to get to spend the rest of my life with this man.

And yeah, we were going to have to deal with pesky ghosts. But we were going to get to do it _together_. There was nothing that I could think of that would be better than that.

There would be times that we would fight, but that was okay. I loved him and he loved me. We would always make up. It wasn't going to be perfect. But it was going to be the best that we could both make it.

I snapped out of my reverie when Jesse said those two binding words, "I do."

Then it was my turn to listen, and agree to the vows. "I do," I promised, once Father D. finished talking.

We exchanged our rings. Father Dom smiled at us. "It is with great pleasure that I announce you as husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."

Jesse leaned down and pressed a soft and chaste kiss to my mouth. When he started to pull away, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him harder. "Susannah," he murmured, before firmly pulling back.

Hey, it was my wedding day. I was going to kiss him and mean it.

With a sigh, I took my bouquet back from Gina. Then my new husband and I walked down the aisle. At the end, I threw the bouquet, surprising the guests. I didn't even look to see who had caught the bundle of purple orchids.

"You know what I think we should do?" I said, as Jesse and I got into the limo I'd been brought in. The rest of the guests would meet us at the Pebble Beach Resort, where the reception was going to be. I'd gotten a good deal because I used to work there.

"What," Jesse wanted to know, "do you think we should do?"

"Skip the reception, of course. We could head back to your – our place for a bit before we get to the airport."

He lifted an eyebrow at me. You know, the one with the scar in it. "And do what, Susannah?" he asked, smirking. He knew what I wanted. And he wasn't going to give it to me yet.

I glared at him. "Jerk," I muttered, folding my arms and sinking into my seat.

"_Te_ _amo_, Susannah. By the way, you look stunning."

I wouldn't blush, I promised myself, no matter how flattering that comment was. And I didn't. Blush, I mean.

Much.

"Whatever," I mumbled, kicking my heels.

With no warning whatsoever, Jesse leaned over and kissed me passionately. Whoa. Just...whoa. Jesse had _never_ kissed me like this before. Now I really couldn't wait for the honeymoon. I pulled myself closer to him, deepening the kiss. His hands encircled my waist.

Then the limo came to a stop, and Jesse pulled away. He got out of the vehicle, a smirk on his face. That little...

"Jesse!" I yelled, rushing after him. "You are such a tease. That was just rude, you know."

He didn't respond, but held out his hand. I took it, squeezing tightly. I couldn't be mad at him, not now. Not on the happiest day of our lives.

We entered the room, and immediately everybody cheered. We were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. de Silva, which brought a huge smile to my face.

The next few hours were really just a big blur to me. Jesse and I shoved cake into each other's faces, then laughed about it. We gave a toast to all of our guests.

I danced with Andy, Jake, and David. Separately, of course. Brad didn't ask, and I didn't offer.

Ew.

I mean, it was weird enough with the other Ackerman guys. It would have been just gross with Brad.

I danced with Adam, and Paul. And Jesse didn't even have a problem with that. He knew that Paul wasn't going to try anything, not anymore.

I danced with Jesse, probably more than I danced with anybody else. I loved having him hold me close, and being able to hear his heart beat. I would never get tired of that sound.

And then, finally, we got into the limo to go to the airport. I had changed into a nice little slip dress just before we left, and Jesse sure seemed to be enjoying the purple number. His fingers kept running along the neckline, as the limo made its way to the airport.

I snuggled closer to my new husband. Wow, I loved that word. "So," I said, "what sort of exciting things do you have planned for our honeymoon in Spain?"

His fingers froze. "Susannah."

"Hmm?" I mumbled, not really paying any attention. I was too busy fiddling with the first few buttons on his shirt. Oh, calm down. I wasn't going to take it off or even unbutton it all the way. I just wanted to see a bit more of his muscled chest.

"How did you know we were going to Spain, querida?"

I stopped moving. "Um..."

Oops.

**Suze: It's not my fault you left your email open and up on the screen. I just _happened_ to look at it, and I saw that you had bought tickets to Spain...**

**Jesse: Susannah, I wanted it to be a surprise.**

**Suze: I'm sorry, Jesse. I couldn't help seeing it. I mean, it was right there. Big and obvious.**

**Jesse: (muttering) Somehow, I doubt that it was entirely accidental. You went searching through my emails on purpose, did you not?**

**Suze: Jesse, are you trying to say that you have something that you're hiding from me?**

**Jesse: Don't do that, Susannah. Don't try to make me out as the villain when it is you who have done wrong.**

**Suze: (on the verge of fake tears) Okay, fine! I confess! Your account was open, so I snooped around a bit. I'm sorry.**

**Jesse: (sighing) It's all right. You're forgiven, _querida_.**

**Suze smirks.**


	4. Chapter 4

**In this chapter, Jesse is still twenty-three, for about another month. And Suze is nineteen.**

It was Valentine's Day, and I felt like crap. Seriously. I had been sick for about two weeks now. There I was, trying to make a nice, romantic dinner for my husband, and I end up worshiping the porcelain god. It was only a matter of time before Jesse realized that I was sick out of my mind.

Yeah, sure. He was way busy with his classes, and work at the Historical Society Museum. I don't know if you noticed this or not, but Jesse? He's pretty observant. For a guy. Except about the whole not-realizing-that-I-was-totally-in-love-with-him thing.

But still. He was going to notice, and soon. Then he would force me to go to the doctor. Then –

"You're not looking so good," an amused voice said.

I barely glanced at the glowing figure in my bathroom before I puked. Again.

When I was finished, I washed my mouth out with a glass of cool water. "What do you want?" I demanded of the older man.

He looked me up and down. "So, you're the mediator," he said.

"Yeah, that's me. Now tell me what the hell you want."

"Well, I'm not sure if you can help me with my problem."

"Really? Because that's actually fine by me." I didn't want to deal with any ghost crap at that moment. "You can just wait until my husband gets home from work. He's a mediator, too, so _he_ can deal with your crap. Or, better yet, you can go find freaking Paul Slater. But leave me alone."

I pushed past the ghost, into the adjoining bedroom. I slammed the door, not that it would keep him out if he really wanted in. Jesse would be home in a few minutes, anyway. Maybe I'd just take a short nap...

"Susannah!"

I jerked away. Jesse was standing in the doorway, his brown eyes wide. I sat up, rubbing at my own eyes. Something didn't smell so good. "What?"

"Whatever you had in the oven is burned beyond repair, _querida_. It was just starting to smoke." Ah, that's what that smell was. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure, I'm fine."

He sat beside me on the bed, placing his hand on my forehead. "You are a little warm."

I whined, turning my head away from him. "Jes-se! I'm fine."

He chuckled in amusement. "The fact that you are arguing so vehemently on the matter tells me that you are not 'fine,' as you say. Have you been feeling ill at all? You look a little pale."

I shrugged. "Maybe," I mumbled, playing with the comforter.

"Susannah de Silva."

"Okay, gosh. Don't do that. Yes, I've been feeling sick."

"For how long?"

"Two weeks," I muttered miserably.

Jesse's amusement disappeared in a flash. He was so touchy sometimes. "Susannah! _Nombre_ –"

"Oh, don't even start the Spanish ramblings. I'm so not in the mood. So I have the flu. Big deal. I'll get over it. And before you can say anything, I didn't tell you because I knew you would worry. And here you are, worrying."

Now he looked a little mad. "Of course I am worrying, Susannah. You have been sick for two weeks. Get up."

I felt my eyes go wide. What was he going to do? "Why?"

"You," he informed me, "are going to go to the doctor. Now."

I argued, "But I need an appointment." I was just stalling for time. I knew I couldn't argue with him and win. But I really didn't want to go. I hated doctors and hospitals. I'd spent more than enough in hospitals.

"Susannah, I'll take you to the walk-in clinic. Get up."

"But –"

"No." Then he looked at me and sighed. "Please, _querida_. Go to the doctor. For me."

Which was how I found myself at the clinic half an hour later, still waiting to be seen. I hate when he pulls the "for me" card. Jesse sat beside me, holding my hand and making sure I couldn't escape. I glared at him.

He either didn't notice, or he chose to ignore me. It was probably the second one. He tended to do that a lot.

"I hate you," I said.

He said, "I love you, too," and calmly picked up a magazine with free hand.

I slouched in my seat and grumbled to myself about the stupidity of men. My mom's therapist would be so disappointed that I was talking to myself again.

"Susannah de Silva," a nurse called.

Jesse stood, pulling me with him, and said, "That's us."

"No shit, Sherlock," I muttered under my breath. I stomped after the nurse, ignoring Jesse as best as I could. Which was really hard since I was always so aware of him.

We were led into an exam room, where the nurse asked me some questions. Then she left.

Twenty minutes after that, the doctor arrived. She asked some more questions. Then she took a saliva sample and a bit of blood for a few tests.

And we were left waiting.

Again.

"Jesse?" I couldn't stand the silence any longer.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I ruined dinner. I really wanted it to be special for us. And then I was stupid and –"

"Susannah."

"What?" I sniffled.

"It's all right. I just want you to feel better."

I sat down beside him and leaned against him. He wrapped his arms around me, smoothing my hair. "I love you, Susannah," he murmured.

We waited for the doctor to come back. Finally, she did. She was smiling. "Mrs. de Silva, I think some congratulations are in order. You're pregnant."

I froze. "I'm what? But...we haven't been trying for a baby...I'm on birth control..."

"Do you take it every single day?"

"Well, almost." I might forget once in a while.

"It's not one-hundred percent effective, Mrs. de Silva, especially if doses are missed. If you'd like, I can do a quick ultrasound to find out about how far along you are."

I nodded, stunned. "I'll have a technician bring the machine in, then. I'll be back."

And we were alone again.

"A baby," Jesse whispered.

I turned to look at him. He looked shocked. As shocked as I felt. "We're going to have a baby."

We had never really discussed kids. I knew he waned a large family. I didn't really care how many kids we had, as long as he was happy. Of course, I wasn't going to tell him that.

"How many do you want?"

He said, "Six. Just like my family had."

"Do you want a boy? By the way, I'm not having more than two."

He just grinned, knowing that I was only saying it for argument's sake. "I would like to have a boy, yes. The de Silvas always had a lot of girls, though."

The doctor came back, a technician following her. I was instructed to lay back and lift my shirt, which caused Jesse to blush slightly.

Jeez. Nineteenth century guys.

"This gel will be cold," the technician said, then she placed the freezing stuff on my stomach. I sucked in a breath.

"You weren't kidding."

She smiled slightly and said, "No. There's your baby. It looks like you might be...seven weeks along."

"I'm going to guess that you're due date will be September twenty-fifth. Now, that might change. It's usually difficult to pinpoint the exact age of the fetus, especially this early. I want you to make an appointment with your regular doctor a month from now. And I'll write you a prescription for some prenatal vitamins until then."

Even as she spoke, she was scribbling something in her pad. I quickly wiped off my stomach. The doctor gave Jesse the paper. "Here you are. Have a nice Valentine's Day, Mr. and Mrs. de Silva. And congratulations on the little one."

"Thank you."

Jesse helped me stand up, and then we left together. We were silent as we got into the car. I found my hand straying to my stomach. There was a tiny _person_ in there. A person who would be entirely dependant on us. A person who –

"Jesse!"

He looked up, startled. "What's wrong, Susannah?"

"What if the baby is a mediator? Or a shifter? What will we do?"

"We will do what we have to do." He took my face between his hands. "We will teach this little one to use his or her gift well. We will help him or her every step of the way."

My heart calmed. I probably wouldn't be the best example to our child, but Jesse would. Jesse would be the best dad ever.

"Okay. Okay, then. I can do this. We can do this."

"Susannah, there is one thing that I think we should do, that might help us. We should tell your mother and stepfather that we're shifters."

I laughed. "No way. We'll tell them that I'm pregnant, but not that we see dead people and can travel back in time if we want to kill our brain cells. Not gonna happen, Jesse."

He sighed. "If you insist. Should we stop by to tell them of the baby, then?"

"We probably should."

**Suze: Mom, Andy! I have some great news! Jesse and I are having a baby!**

**David: I'm going to be an uncle?**

**Helen: My baby's having a baby?**

**Andy: I'm gonna be a grandpa!**

**Jesse: (chuckling) Yes, we are having a baby. Susannah is about seven weeks along. The doctor tentatively set the due date for September twenty-fifth.**

**Helen: So you don't know the gender yet?**

**Suze: No. It's too early, I think. Besides, I think we'll keep it a surprise.**

**Jesse: (smiling) That was how my parents did it, with each of my sisters and I. They didn't know the gender until the birth of each child. Susannah and I want it that way.**


	5. Chapter 5

**To iheartbooks2059, thank you so much for your review. I appreciate it. I hope you don't hate me in the future. The baby might not be born on the actual due date. Sorry.**

**Jesse is now twenty-four and Suze is nineteen. And she's just about at the seventh month mark for her pregnancy.**

"Jesse!" I called, sitting on the couch, rubbing my belly. My _fat_ belly. Gosh, I hated being pregnant. And the stretch marks were so ugly. I had to rub this nasty smelling lotion on my stomach every day to get rid of them, and –

"Yes, _querida_?" Jesse asked, poking his head into our living room, holding a box. The apartment was full of boxes, since we were moving soon. I mean, we had a baby on the way. We couldn't stay in this one-bedroom apartment. It was too small for a baby.

"I'm hungry," I whined. "And I really don't want to get up. I'm so comfortable right here. Will you make me a sandwich, please? Oh, wait! I don't want a sandwich. I want Oreo cookies!"

He crinkled his nose, knowing what was coming next. It'd been the same way for the past month now. "Do you want pickles with them?"

"Duh."

"Let me put this box away." Shuddering, he went back into the kitchen to get me my weird snack. Jesse was the world's best husband, seriously. He even made me chocolate covered bacon this morning. If that's not true love, I don't know what is.

Pregnancy sure caused some weird cravings, let me tell you. I've come up with some pretty strange concoctions in the last few months.

Jesse came back in with a package of Oreos, a fork, and a small jar of the sliced pickles that you put on sandwiches. "Thanks," I said, taking them from him. Those pickles were the perfect size to put on Oreos.

He started to leave, but I called out his name. "Wait, stay."

"Susannah, I have a paper that I need to finish for one of my classes."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please. You have like, half a page left to do and that's it. And it's not even due until Tuesday. Sit down. We need to discuss names, since I am seven months pregnant. Or almost seven months. I mean, I know that we want her middle name to be Isabel, if it's a girl, but we need more than that."

Jesse and I have decided that we want the sex of the baby to be a surprise, since that's how they did it in Jesse's day. Well, they had to. It's not like they had ultrasound machines back then.

My mom told me that we were crazy and that we wouldn't be able to handle the suspense. I personally thought it was her that couldn't handle the suspense. I was handling it just fine.

"I want us to have a boy name and a girl name picked out before we go to the hospital."

"All right." He sat beside me.

"Good. We're both agreed that we're not going to name the baby after any of your sisters or your mother if it's a girl. Right?"

"Yes. She should have her own name."

I grinned. "So that also rules out Hector if it's a boy?"

He scowled. "Of course we will not name our son Hector, _querida_. No child deserves that name."

He hates his given name. I only ever call him that when I'm really mad at him. Which doesn't happen too often, fortunately for him.

"I got a book full of Spanish names, and I went through it while you were in class today. I wrote down my five favorites of each gender. It's not a very big book. And I really didn't like many of them. But I found five that I did like."

"What are your favorite names?"

I shook my head. "I want you to write down your five favorites. Then we'll compare, and narrow it down to the one that we both like best."

"That's a great idea, Susannah. You enjoy your," he gave my pickle-Oreo creation a funny look, "treat. I'll look through the book."

I handed him the book of names, and then started eating. My five favorite girl names are Cristina, Nina, Querida, Rosalyn, and Teresa. I think I like that last one just because that's what Jesse calls me all the time. For boys, I like Carlos, Enrique, Esteban, Luciano, and Reyes.

We were silent for a little while. Jesse was reading, and I was enjoying my snack. It took him about an hour to go through the book and find his favorites for each gender. Then we swapped lists.

Adelina, Destina, Raquel, Rosalinda, and Teresa. The only one on that list that I didn't like was Destina. And of course I loved Teresa. And then he had Antonio, Carlos, Dantae, Enrique, and Ramone. I hoped he was just kidding about Dantae. Dante de Silva? No way.

"Querida?" he laughed. "No."

"What," I wanted to know, "is wrong with that name?"

He smiled lovingly at me. "_Querida_, that is _your_ name. I do not think that you would like sharing it with your daughter."

"Okay, fine. Take it off the list. And cross of Destina. I can't stand that one, I'm sorry."

He drew a line through both of them. "That leaves us with Cristina, Nina, Rosalyn, Teresa, Adelina, Raquel, and Rosalinda. Do you mind if I take Rosalyn and Rosalinda off?"

"No. That's a good idea. I don't like them as much, compared to the others. And strike Nina, too. Which ones are left?" I asked.

"Cristina, Teresa, Adelina, and Raquel. Of those four, which is your favorite and which is your least favorite?"

"My least favorite is Raquel. I can't decide between Cristina and Teresa for my favorite."

Nodding, he crosses Raquel off the list. "I feel almost the same way. I like both Teresa and Adelina, however."

"Oh, I know how we can decide. Let's see how each one sounds with Isabel."

"Adelina Isabel de Silva. Cristina Isabel de Silva. Teresa Isabel de Silva."

We looked at each other and said, "Teresa."

I nodded. "Okay. That's perfect. Now for the boys. I'll be honest, there are two names that keep popping out to me."

He smiled and said, "Carlos and Enrique?"

"Yeah. We both have them on our lists, and I love them both. So let's just scratch all the others. Do you have one that you like better?"

He shook his head. "I love them both, as you do. What about Carlos Enrique de Silva? Or Enrique Carlos de Silva?"

"You're a genius. Carlos Enrique. It's perfect. What do you think?"

Smiling, he placed his warm hands on my stomach. "Teresa or Carlos. _Mi niño maravilloso. Te amo_."

I turned and kissed him fiercely. I knew how much having a family meant to him. For a century and a half, he had been convinced that he would never be able to have children of his own.

The phone rang, startling us. "Ignore it," I said, and kissed him again.

He pulled back. Then he reached over and answered the phone. Damn. "Hello? De Silva residence, this is Jesse speaking."

He chuckled. "She's right here." He held the phone out to me. "It's CeeCee."

I took the phone, watching him leave the room. He was probably going to finish that stupid paper of his. At least his butt looked good in those jeans. Which I picked out, by the way. The guy is hopeless when it comes to clothes. "What?" I snapped into the receiver.

CeeCee squealed.

Seriously. CeeCee never squeals. She's just not the squealing kind of girl. Horse laugh? Definitely. Squeal? Not so much. I cringed. "Cee, stop that. You're about to burst my eardrums."

"Sorry. It's just...You'll never guess what just happened to me."

"You just realized that you're about to die because you totally interrupted my amazing make-out session with Jesse?"

"No. And get over it."

"Um...You won the lottery?"

"No. Suze, you know I gamble. No, Adam _proposed_ to me. I mean, we're not going to get married anytime soon, probably not for a few years because I want to finish college and everything, but we're _engaged_ now."

"So you said yes?"

"Of course I did!"

"Just checking. Didn't want a repeat of the Winter Formal." I smiled. "I'm really happy for you, CeeCee. You guys are great together."

"I'm happy, too. It's a pretty nice ring, too. I'll stop by sometime tomorrow to show you. How's everything with you and Jesse? Obviously, you still make out like there's no tomorrow."

"Shut up. We're moving into our house next week. Oh, and we just decided names. If it's a boy, he'll be Carlos Enrique. And if it's a girl, she'll be Teresa Isabel. And this time next year, Jesse will have his bachelor's degree. Then he can start med school."

"That's awesome. And you're still planning to not go to college, right?"

"Yeah. I don't see the point, really. Jesse's going to be busy with his job, so one of us needs to be available to take care of...well, the ghosts. A job would just get in the way of that. And I'm also going to have my hands full with the baby."

"You know, even after all these years, I still have a hard time believing everything that you and Jesse have been through. Do you realize how much money you could make if you wrote a book about your life in Carmel or something? You could be famous."

I laughed. "Really, Cee. I don't think people would want to read about my life."

"Hey, it's your life. I'm just saying."

"It is my life. And you know what? I'm happy with it. For the first time, I don't think of my ability as a curse. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't have Jesse."

"And you, Suze, deserve Jesse. You may be a little rough around the edges, but you're a good person and you do a lot to help people. You deserve to be happy. And Jesse's good at keeping you somewhat out of trouble. I have a question for you. It's kind of off-topic."

"Shoot."

"Are you planning to tell your family about the ghost thing?"

I froze, scrunching up my nose. "No, of course not. My mom would freak out and toss me in a loony bin faster than you could say, 'Boo.' What is up with everybody asking me that? First Jesse, then Father Dom, Then Gina, and now you? Wait a minute..." Jesse had been awfully quiet about it this last month. "Did Jesse put you up to it? He's trying to get you all to gang up on me, isn't he?"

"No, he didn't."

"Cee, you can't lie. I'm going to kick his butt. He is so dead. That little –"

She interrupted before I could loudly call him a cowboy. "Suze, he really didn't. I just think that...Suze, you're about to have a baby. It might make things a little stressful for you if your family knows. They can help with the baby while you do your ghost thing. Just...think about it, okay?"

"I've thought about it. No."

"Suze –"

"Hey, sorry to cut this short, but I actually have to go now. Jesse needs my help with dinner. Bye." And I hung up. Did I feel bad? Of course I did. I had no problems hanging up on someone like Kelly Prescott, but CeeCee? Yeah, big problem.

I was such a bad person.

But I really didn't want to deal with that conversation. Sure, I could have handle it like an adult, but I was pregnant, okay? My hormones were messed up, so my judgment was messed up.

"_Querida_."

I jumped, but refused to look at him. "What?" I snapped.

He said, "I wish you wouldn't drag me into your lies."

"Whatever," I mumbled. "I wish you wouldn't get my friends to gang up on me."

He sat next to me, wrapping me in his arms. "I truly believe your family should know the truth, Susannah. I think they will believe you."

"They won't."

"They will. I am sure of it. If you would like, I'll do all the talking. You won't have to say a single word. Please, _querida_, tell them the truth. For me."

"Oh no. That's not going to work this time, buddy. I'm not telling my family. I'm not ready, Jesse."

I would never be ready.

**Gina: Simon!**

**Suze: I told you not to call me that! It's de Silva now.**

**Gina: Like I care. Hey, when are you going to tell your mom that you're a mediator?**

**Suze: (spitting out drink) Gina! For the last time, I am not going to tell her. Ever. So get stop asking me.**

**Gina: If you don't tell her, I will.**

**Suze: (glaring) If you do, I will send every ghost I know to haunt you for the rest of your days.**

**Jesse: (laughing) I think you went a little too far that time, Gina. She will do as she says.**

**Suze: Dang right I will.**


	6. Chapter 6

**This chapter was a lot of fun for me to write. Especially one line that Suze says. It's great. Obviously, the baby is my own character. All other characters belong to Meg Cabot.**

**Jesse is twenty-four, and Suze is now twenty. It's baby time!**

I laughed, tears coursing down my cheeks, because it just hurt so bad. I hadn't even known that a human being could be in so much pain, and I got pummeled on a regular basis. Well, fairly regular. Jesse has been dealing with most of the ghosts lately. And Paul, surprisingly, has been helping people to the other side, though he was back in Seattle doing it. Well, I was pretty sure he's been helping them. I've sending the dead to him when they annoyed me, and none have come back. So he must be doing something.

Ouch! I hurt so bad! There was so much pain in my body, it was hilarious. And of course, because I'd wanted to prove that I could do it just like Jesse's mother had done it – six times! – I chose not to get an epidural.

What. Was. I. Thinking?

I blame the pain for what I did next, I really do. It was making me crazy, that's all I can say.

Jesse and my mom were each holding a hand, coaching me through the labor. I squeezed my mom's hand and motioned for her to lean close. She did.

I whispered, "I see dead people. And Jesse used to be one of them." And then I giggled.

Seriously.

I giggled.

"Susannah!" Jesse whisper-yelled, have barely overheard me. His eyes were wide. "Is now really the time for that? And why did you have to tell her like _that_?"

I couldn't respond because I'd been told to push again. Which I did. I pushed with everything I had. My mom, I could see, was staring at me in shock. What had I just done?

Before anything else could be said, a shrill cry filled the room.

"You have a beautiful baby girl!" the doctor announced. "Do you have a name for her yet?"

Jesse and I smiled at each other. "Teresa," he said. "Teresa Isabel de Silva."

A moment later, my screaming child was placed in my arms. I held her close, softly rocking her. Immediately, I was filled with an overwhelming need to protect this child, from anything and everything. I didn't want anything to ever hurt her.

Jesse stroked her tiny face. She calmed down, then fell asleep.

Jesse was instructed to cut the cord. Then he kissed Teresa's forehead. "I'm going to go tell everyone the news. Should I make them wait fifteen minutes before letting them in?"

"Yes, please. I want a chance to hold her before she gets passed around."

He left, and I looked down at our baby girl. Her skin was about the same shade as mine, maybe a little lighter since she hadn't seen the sun yet. She had a small tuft of hair that was as black as night. Just like Jesse's.

It was hard to tell, at this point, who she looked more like. It definitely looked like she got my nose.

"Susannah."

Uh-oh. My mom rarely called me by full name. Only when I was in _deep_ trouble. "What did you mean when you said you see dead people?"

I gulped and glanced at the nurses. They weren't paying any attention to what we were saying, thank goodness. "Mom, I promise that I'll tell you. Just not right now, okay?"

She saw my glance and nodded once. I knew she was freaked out, but she was an expert on controlling her emotions. Unless you'd live with her all your life, like I have, you wouldn't be able to tell just how freaked out she really was.

I couldn't see any way to get out of this one. I was going to have to tell my mom.

Lovely.

One of the nurses took Teresa's vitals and measurements, writing everything down. Then she gave my baby back to me. My little angel was born at four-twenty-seven in the morning on September thirtieth, five days late. She was seven pounds and eight ounces. She was twenty-one inches long, and her eyes were a deep brown.

Mom opened her mouth to say something, but the door opened.

Gina came in, holding hands with Jake. Ew. Brad, David, and Andy were behind them, followed by Jesse. David immediately launched into some lecture about the infant mortality rate in the United States, and how it's a lot higher than it should be considering all the medical advances that have been made. I tuned him out. I really didn't want to hear about dying babies, not right then.

Everybody wanted to hold Teresa. Jesse and I had our hands clasped as we watched our newborn daughter get passed around. We couldn't stop smiling. Even Brad wanted to hold her, and he looked pretty happy doing it, too. Holding her, I mean.

"I'm sorry that you don't have any family alive to share this special moment with, Jesse," my mom said.

"I do have family, Mrs. Ackerman. Susannah's family is my family now. I am sure that my parents and sisters are watching over us now."

She nodded. I knew she wanted to talk about my crazy statement earlier. Well, I'd already dug myself a deep hole. I might as well dive into it.

"Everybody, I have something that I need to tell you. You might want to sit down for this. Oh, and pass Teresa to Jesse or Gina. You're in for the shock of your lives."

Mom narrowed her eyes. Andy, Jake, and Brad exchanged a confused look. Gina smirked. And David looked excited. He gave the baby to Jesse before sitting down.

"Here's the thing. And this is really hard for me to tell you guys, so please try not to interrupt. I can see ghosts." Stunned silence met this statement. "I can see ghosts who have some kind of unfinished business here and need help moving on. I've been able to see them since I was two. It's kind of my job to help them move on. I'm a mediator. After my dad died, I was him, too. He finally moved on the night of the Winter Formal. Mom, all those times you thought you heard me talking to Dad. Well, I was. You just couldn't see him. When I first moved out here, there was a ghost who had been murdered in our house." I paused to take a deep breath. This was so complicated.

Andy groaned. "That bullet hole I framed...?"

I shook my head. "No. I'm pretty sure he was strangled, though he's never actually told me." I sent a very brief glare at my husband. David was the only one who caught it, and it made him smile even wider. "But don't worry about him right now. His business has been finished. Jake, do you remember the night you and Dave found me at the Mission? Under the collapsed breezeway?"

Mom and Andy folded their arms. They were not happy. Jake gulped. "Yeah. I thought it was a gang thing."

"It was a ghost thing. See, I'd been trying to get Heather Chambers to move on and stop trying to kill Bryce, but she didn't really like that. She especially didn't like it when I tried to exorcise her. She caused the breezeway to fall on top of me. Right before I got rid of her."

Mom and Andy exploded. They didn't yell, probably because they didn't want the nurses to come rushing in, but they were pissed. They chewed Jake and David out, for not telling them I'd been injured. And they chewed me out for sneaking out.

I held my hand up. "Please, not right now. There's a lot more, I promise. That's not even as bad as it gets." My mom looked about ready to faint. "I spoke to Cynthia, your...mom. She wanted me to tell Dave that you guys didn't kill her when she pulled the plug. And then there was Michael Meducci."

Everybody shuddered at that name. "The ghosts of the RLS Angels were trying to kill him. I didn't know that he'd murdered them, so I was trying to protect him. The jellyfish sting on the beach? No, that was actually the Angels trying to drown him. That night at the Point? Michael didn't do that. The Angels did. They weren't very happy with me when I tried to stop them from murdering Michael.

"I'm not even going to explain what happened with the skeleton in the backyard. Honesty, it was traumatic. But I did meet another mediator at work that summer. I actually met two. Jack Slater. And his older brother Paul. Paul and I are actually what's called shifters, as is Jesse, which is more complicated than just a mediator. I'll explain that later. Anyway, Paul kind of did something that could have gotten me killed, which is why I wasn't so happy when he moved here."

"But," Brad said, "you guys hang out a lot. Well, you did before he moved back to Seattle."

"We've kind of made up. He helped me save somebody. Anyway, then I met Craig, Neil's brother." Jake looked shocked. I nodded. "Yeah, I met him when you brought Neil over. Craig wasn't too happy that he had died and his nerdy brother hadn't. He wanted to kill Neil. That's what he was trying to do at your stupid party, drown his brother in the hot tub. But he only did that because _somebody_ tried doing it to Paul because Paul said some things to that other person which were so not true. He was only saying them to start a fight, and it worked." I looked pointedly at my husband.

He shrugged. "I said I was sorry."

Jake's jaw dropped. He stared at Jesse. "Wait a minute. That was...Suze, I heard you yell –"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll get to that in just a minute. Let me finish. So, I used my shifter powers to stop the attempted murders by grabbing Craig and Paul and taking them up to what I call the Shadowland. It's like...a waiting area for ghosts, and then they go to their next life or whatever. That's why I passed out. Only my spirit goes to the Shadowland, not my whole body." I looked at Jesse. "I guess we should tell them who my roommate was. I think some of them have already guessed."

He nodded, but he looked nervous. Mom tapped her foot, her eyes just narrow slits. "Yes, please do, _querida_."

"Well, it was Jesse. See, he was born in eighteen-thirty. He died twenty years later, when his fiancée and cousin ordered her lover to kill him, since he had been planning to call off the wedding because of her infidelity. Jesse and I started dating after the hot tub party, while he was still a ghost. That was why I hung out in my room so much, especially on Saturdays. Date night. By the way, he moved in with Father Dom once we started dating, who is also a mediator. So it's not like Jesse and I were living together."

"Father Dominic?" my mother asked.

"Yeah. Anyway, Paul told me that shifters could travel through time. He was going to go back and save Jesse, so that I would never meet him and he could date me. As if. I didn't want that, and Jesse didn't want that. So I went back stop Paul."

"Wait just a minute," Jake said, "You went back in time to eighteen-fifty, to make sure that your boyfriend would get murdered? That's messed up, Suze. Way messed up."

"I know. But then I couldn't let him die. I met him, and even though he had no idea who I was, I couldn't let Diego, the guy that Jesse's ex was with, kill him. So I warned him about Diego. Diego showed up, and they fought. Jesse kind of killed him, but it was purely in self-defense. It was in the loft of the barn that used to be part of the boardinghouse. Anyway, a fire started during the fight, and I shifted back here. The problem was that I still touching Jesse. So his body came with me. Paul helped me drive him to the hospital. And then Ghost Jesse showed up at the hospital, and he touched his own leg. His spirit got reunited with his body, and now here he is. Alive."

It was a good thing everybody was already sitting down. "I was wondering how he was alive, Suze," David said.

Gina smirked. "You owe me for those clothes you ruined, Jesse. I'm guessing it was you with the nail polish?"

"You called Spike ugly," he sniffed.

I rolled my eyes. "That cat is ugly, Jesse. I can't believe the thing's still alive. And you shouldn't have gotten so mad over it."

"So the beer at the store...I know that it was ghosts. Was it the Angels?" Gina asked.

"Yes."

"Was Heather responsible for Father Serra's head?" Andy questioned faintly.

"Yes again. She ripped it off and tried to play bowling, with me as the pin."

"Is that...Everything that happened back in New York...It was all because of ghosts?"

I sighed. "It is, Mom. It always has been."

"And...your father. All these years, you've been able to see him?"

"Yeah. His unfinished business was our happiness. He couldn't move on until we were both happy. For you, that was when you married Andy. For me, it was when I could finally, really be with Jesse."

"Susie, why didn't you tell me?"

"Mom, would you have believed me?"

She opened her mouth to argue. I knew that she wanted to say yes. But we both knew that she couldn't. She wouldn't have believed me. She only believed me now because Jesse was backing up my story, and she knew that Father Dominic would be back me up as well, if she were to ask him.

"This is..."

I nodded. "I know. It's a lot to take it. Gina's known forever, since we went to some psychic who told me that I'm a mediator."

"She also told you that you would have just one love, but it would last forever."

My mom actually crooned at that. She's a hopeless romantic. "Yeah, thanks, Gina, for that little bit of totally unrelated information. And David's known for a while. He did a little research into the house and even offered to trade rooms with me because he was convinced mine was haunted. Also, Jesse was the one who told him where to find me when I got myself trapped by Heather. CeeCee knows. She figured it out. And Father Dom knows, of course. He's helped me a lot."

"Why are you telling us this now?" Jake asks.

I looked at Jesse, who smiled and passed Teresa to me. I ran my finger down her nose. "Because Jesse and I are both powerful shifters, we think that Teresa will be at least a mediator. Jesse, Gina, Father Dom, and CeeCee all seem to think that it will help me to have you all know the truth. And to be honest, I don't regret telling you all. Even though I think I only said anything because I was in a lot of pain. It's nice to not have to worry about keeping it a secret anymore."

"Has Jesse always been a shifter? Even when he was alive the first time?" David asked curiously. I would have to tell him later that he could not perform any experiments on my husband or daughter.

Jesse shook his head. "No. That happened when Susannah brought me back. We don't know how or why."

"So what was _your_ unfinished business?" Brad asked suddenly.

"Brad!"

"What? I'm curious."

"Brad, that can be a very personal question for some people. You shouldn't just go around asking that. Jesse's not going to answer that."

"But didn't it like, mess up history or something for him to be here now? And what about that Diego guy? He probably had kids, right? Except you changed everything when you and Jesse killed him."

"Well, he and Maria had a bunch of kids, but they never really amounted to anything. So it didn't change much. Jesse's family already thought that he had disappeared without a trace."

"I believe that everything happened the way God intended it to, Brad," Jesse said. "I was meant to be with Susannah."

I yawned, nodding. "Yeah, that's right," I mumbled, ready to sleep for about a million years.

My mom leaned down and kissed my forehead. "We'll leave you to get some rest. Teresa is beautiful. Andy, Gina, boys, come on."

Then they were gone. I looked down at my baby girl. "Jesse, she's so beautiful."

"She is, _querida_. Thank you. Thank you for giving me a life again, and thank you for giving me this beautiful child."

I shifted Teresa in my arms, which caused her to crinkle her little nose unhappily. I expected her to cry, but she buried herself deeper into her blanket.

I had a family now. It was something that I'd never really thought I would have. And it was something that I cherished more than anything.

**This little conversation takes place a little before Teresa is born.**

**Suze: (waking up suddenly) Um, Jesse. Jesse?**

**Jesse: (rolling in his sleep) Mmm...**

**Suze: Hector Jesse de Silva! Wake up right this second!**

**Jesse: (sitting up quickly) What? Susannah, what are you yelling about?**

**Suze: I think my water just broke! And - Yeah, that was a contraction. Will you get your butt out of bed and get me to the damn hospital?**

**Jesse: (leaping out of bed) The baby's coming!**

**Suze: Yeah, so hurry!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, it's time for a new chapter. Thank you guys for reading this. I know that there's not a lot of action going on, but I started writing it mostly because I wanted to write about Jesse and Suze's family. I'll probably throw some ghost problems here and there. Hope you enjoy!**

**Jesse is twenty-five, and Suze is still twenty. Baby Teresa is now six months old.**

"Teresa, stop it," I hissed as quietly as I could. We were at Mom and Andy's _trying_ to have a surprise party for Jesse, since it was his twenty-fifth birthday. Andy had asked him over, on the pretense of picking up some toys Teresa had left last week when they babysat her for a couple of hours. Jesse was stopping by right after his classes were over.

But my daughter kept clapping her hands and giggling. It was cute, especially since she'd just started giggling the week before, but I needed her to be quiet. Or we'd never surprise Jesse.

Oh, who was I kidding? We wouldn't be able to surprise him.

"Resa, please. Stop clapping so we can surprise Daddy." Of course, the mention of her father just caused her to bounce and clap even harder.

Instead of helping me quiet her down, my family just laughed at me. Not even my newly engaged best friend was helping. And no, it wasn't CeeCee. Jake had proposed to Gina the month before. Ugh.

Before I could yell at them all, the door opened and Jesse walked in.

"Why do I hear my daughter? She's supposed to be at home with my wife," he said, not looking surprised at all.

I sighed, as Teresa squealed and reached for her daddy. She loves Jesse. But really, who can blame her? Jesse is one loveable guy. If he had been my dad – that was just a weird thought right there – I'd have liked him better than my mom. Which is exactly how Teresa feels.

"Well, it was supposed to be a surprise party. So...Happy birthday!"

He took Resa from my arms, kissing her forehead. "_Mi hija hermosa. Te amo_, Teresa."

She giggled, and grabbed a fisftul of his hair. Then she gave a good yank. Jesse winced, bearing the pain. "You tried to throw a surprise party for me, Susannah?"

"_Tried_ being the key word."

He leaned over and kissed my lips. "Thank you, _querida_."

Brad made a gagging sound. "Ugh, gross. Can we just eat some cake already?"

"You're just jealous because you're not in love," I told him. "And did you only come to my husband's party for _cake_?"

"Yeah, duh."

I opened my mouth to argue, but Jesse stopped me by placing his hand on my arm. "Susannah. Please do not fight with your brother."

I sighed. I didn't even argue with him about the whole "step" thing. I'd accepted, however reluctantly when it came to one individual, that the Ackermans were my family. I still called Andy by his name, because it was habit for me, but he had become a father to me. And I considered Jake, Brad, and David to be my brothers.

We got out the cake and sang to Jesse. Teresa bounced in his arms, clapping and gurgling. He smiled at her, covering her small face in kisses. I smiled, watching them.

"He's a wonderful father," Mom commented, as Andy dished up the cake.

I nodded. "He is. He's had a lot of practice taking care of little girls. He had five younger sisters, and the youngest was born when he was fourteen. He loved them a lot."

"His manners make a lot more sense, now that I know what era he was born in. He's always been such a gentleman. He's the perfect son-in-law."

"That's how he was raised. I think his parents would be so proud of him. When he was growing up, he was expected to work the land with his father. He was the only boy in the family. So even though he wanted to be a doctor, he couldn't. He couldn't leave the ranch, not for the amount of time medical school would have taken. He never even _mentioned_ his dream to anybody."

"And now he's only a few months away from getting his bachelor's degree, and then he'll be starting med school. I think his parents would be _very_ proud. Susie, I'm proud of him, and he's not even my child."

"So am I, Mom. He works so hard, but he still finds time for me and Teresa. She loves her daddy so much."

"She loves you, too, Susie."

I snorted, not really believing her. To me, it seemed like Teresa didn't do much but scream and cry when I was around. "Yeah, sure."

"Suze, trust me. When she's upset, who's the first person she looks at? It's you. She loves Jesse, but she loves you, too."

I smiled. I hate to admit it, but I had been needing to hear that. I'd been so exhausted and kind of...sad since Teresa had been born. I probably had the Baby Blues. It was nice to know that my baby did love me. I certainly loved her.

"Thanks, Mom."

Jesse approached us, Teresa on his hip. He looked down at our daughter. "Would you like to go see your grandmother for a little while, Teresa?"

She giggled when my mom held her hands out. She took Resa, cooing to her, and wandered away. She was taking the baby to Andy, which was fine with me.

Jesse wrapped his arms around my waist. He kissed my cheek. "Thank you, Susannah."

"You're welcome."

"How has your day been?"

I shrugged. "I missed you. Resa was really fussy this morning. And she bit me with her new tooth."

"You're doing a wonderful job, _querida_."

"I'm trying. How were your classes today?"

He smiled. "Very good. We were discussing the Gold Rush in American History."

I grinned. "I'll bet that was interesting. Did you say anything?"

"I did. The professor said that I spoke as if I had actually lived through it, and that he was impressed." I started laughing. I always found it so funny when somebody said something like that to Jesse. Since, you know, he had actually lived through it. "I just explained that I was a history major and I had an extreme passion for the past."

My laughter trailed off. Sighing happily, I leaned my head against his shoulder. I watched Jake toss Teresa up into the air. He was only tossing her a few inches, and she was giggling up a storm, so I didn't freak out. Besides, she was my daughter. She was one tough little girl. "I've never really seen my brothers so...I don't know. Caring? Do you know what I caught Brad doing the last time we were both here?"

Jesse said, "No."

"He was playing peek-a-boo with her. It was weird."

"Hey," Gina called, "birthday boy. Get back over here. We have presents for you." She smirked. Uh-oh. That was Gina's this-is-going-to-be-so-much-fun smirk. This would be interesting.

Jesse looked a little worried. "Susannah. Should I be frightened?"

I shrugged, a grin pulling at my lips. "Probably."

He cringed.

**Gina: Open the present. You're just going to _love_ it, Jesse.**

**Jesse: (wryly) Somehow, I doubt that.**

**(Gina smirks. Jesse opens the gift, then glares at Gina)**

**Jesse: I knew I wouldn't like it. I told you before, Gina, that I am _not_ a cowboy. I do not want to wear cowboy clothes. **


	8. Chapter 8

**I've been having fun with this little fanfiction. I hope you are all enjoying it as much as I am.**

**Jesse is twenty-five, and Suze is twenty-one. Teresa is now thirteen months.**

"Teresa!" I called, chasing in the direction I had last seen my daughter go. Now that she had learned how to walk, she was all over the place. She could get going pretty damn fast, too, when she wanted to. "Teresa Isabel de Silva, get back here." Crap. Where had she gone? I saw her go down the hall...

"Susannah," Jesse said as he came out of our bedroom, "I think this little one has more energy than she needs." He was holding Teresa upside down by her feet, which made her squeal in laughter. He turned her upright and kissed her cheek.

"Definitely. Today's going to be a long one. I wish you didn't have to work today."

He smiled. "As do I, Susannah." He looked down at our daughter. "Teresa. Daddy has to go to work, so you need to be really good for Mommy."

She reached her arms toward me. "Mommy."

I took her, a smile pulling at my lips. I smiled almost every time I saw my little girl. Well, every time she wasn't screaming her head off. "Hi, baby."

"Teresa, are you going to be good for Mommy?" Jesse asked.

Our daughter shook her head, her black hair flopping. "No, Daddy." She had a little grin on her face, knowing that she was saying the exact opposite of what her father wanted her to. She loved the word no.

"Yes. If you're not good, Daddy won't read you a story tonight. Promise me, Teresa. Promise Daddy that you'll be a good girl."

She pouted out her lower lip and said, "Pom."

"All right. _Te amo_." He gave her another kiss. Then he pressed his lips to mine softly. "I'll see you at four, _querida_. I love you."

I grinned and said, "What? No Spanish for me?"

"_Te amo, querida_."

"Bye," I called, waving as he left.

Teresa copied my movement. "Buh!" she yelled.

I chuckled. "You silly little girl. Let's go do some yard work, huh?"

One of the things that I loved about living in California was the weather. Even though it was the middle of October, it was sunny outside.

I brought a blanket out for Teresa to sit and play on, even though I knew she wouldn't stay there, and headed outside with my daughter. I would have tried to take a nap, but I knew the baby would never let me.

Jesse and I had been up almost the entire night. First, it was because Teresa's incoming teeth were bothering her. She's got her two bottom teeth that have cut through the gums completely, and now she's got three or four other ones that are trying to cut through. That did not put her in a good mood. At all.

Then a young ghost showed up, and we had to take care of her. It took us forever to convince her that we were going to help her first thing in the morning. We finally fell asleep about four o'clock.

And Jesse had to be up at seven-thirty so he could be to work by nine. He also made a phone call to Lindsay's - the late-night ghost - fiance to let him know that Lindsay loved him and wanted him to move on. And that it was okay to sell her engagement ring. And of course, Teresa just had to wake up when he did so I couldn't even sleep in.

I was exhausted, and a little cranky. And I didn't really feel all that great. Jesse had been as chipper as ever. Seriously. _How_ does he do it? He can roll out of bed at four in the morning and be almost as happy and awake as he would have been at seven. Maybe it was that whole growing up on a ranch thing.

I was hoping that being outside and doing a little bit of weeding would wake me up.

"Mommy! Pay!"

Smiling, I set her on the ground. "Go play, then. But stay where I can see you."

She started running around in circles, yelling happily. She found a toy ball that she'd thrown out here the other day, and carried that with her, smacking it. For only being thirteen months, she had pretty good balance. She'd only been walking for about two months.

I got to work, keeping an eye on my young daughter. I had to remind her a few times that dirt and flowers were _not_ to be eaten.

But did she listen? Of course not. She gets it from Jesse, I swear.

"Teresa Isabel de Silva!" I exclaimed, as she grabbed a stick and chomped down on it. No, I am not kidding. A _stick_.

I scrambled to my feet, about to go after her. My stomach churned, and then I was losing my meager breakfast. When I was done, I wiped my mouth and made my way slowly to Teresa. My stomach was still rolling, but I couldn't focus on that while my daughter was trying to eat a stick. I took it out of her mouth, which of course caused her to cry.

"Teresa, that's yucky. Come on, let's go inside."

"Mommy!" she cried, twisting in my arms. Sheesh. Where did this kid get her orneriness from?

Oh, right. Me. I'd be proud if it wasn't such a pain in the butt for me to deal with.

I took her into the house and put her in her play pen in the living room, giving her some of her favorite toys and a sippy cup with milk. That got her to quiet down and, hopefully, forget that I had taken her stick. Then I laid down on the couch and dozed.

I didn't really get any rest, though, because my stomach just wouldn't settle down. And I threw up once again. What was going on? I didn't think I had the flu, so that couldn't be it. I'd had a small breakfast, just bacon and eggs, so I didn't overeat.

Oh. That bacon had smelled kind of funny. Maybe I had food poisoning. That would make sense. But if that was it, it was probably only a mild case. Why had I even cooked the bacon?

Either way, I decided to make a trip to the clinic to check it out. Jesse would make me go anyway, if he found out. Which he would. He always does. So it would probably be best if I just went myself.

Teresa had fallen asleep, so I got the diaper bag and my keys before gently lifting her out of the play pen. I was extremely careful not to wake her up as I buckled her into her car seat. I didn't need to hear any screams.

It didn't take very long for me to be led to an examination room and for the doctor to come in. That was a first. That it hadn't take a while, I mean. I was usually waiting for at least half an hour. This time, only about five minutes.

Amazing.

The woman smiled when she saw my sleeping daughter in my arms. "Oh, she's adorable. You must be Susannah de Silva. And who's this little one? Your daughter, I'm guessing?"

I smiled and nodded, sweeping Teresa's hair out of her face. "She is. Her name is Teresa."

"Beautiful. Now, Susannah, what is going on?"

So I explained what had happened. She nodded, listening intently. "And how do you feel right now?"

"Fine, actually. I'm not even queasy at all."

"Hmm. Susannah, has it occurred to you that you might be pregnant again?"

I froze, but I could feel myself starting to smile. Why hadn't I thought of that? "Actually, now that I think about it, that's a very real possibility. My husband and I went off the birth control a month and a half ago. We didn't think we'd get pregnant this quick, though."

"Well, if you're all right with it, I'll take a little bit of blood just to confirm my suspicions. Unless you'd rather just take a urine test."

"Go ahead and take the blood. It's more accurate, right?"

"Generally."

She took the blood sample and left. I could hardly sit still as I waited for her to get back with the result.

And then she did. And I knew, from the smile on her face. I was pregnant again! Well, her smile and the ultrasound machine she had brought with her. Jesse was going to be so happy.

This time, the doctor didn't have a technician do the machine. She did it herself, to see how far along I was.

What we found was a little shocking. I can tell you that I certainly wasn't expecting it.

I thanked the doctor and left, holding Teresa, who was still asleep. I got in the car and drove to the Historical Society Museum.

Jesse was giving a lecture when I arrived. Teresa was just starting to wake up. She smiled when she had finished rubbing her eyes and saw her father. "Daddy!" she yelled out, causing a ripple of laughter.

He paused briefly, smiling at us, and then continued giving information about the de Silvas. I know. Weird, right? Especially when he gets asked if he's related to them. He has to make up some vague excuse about missing family records, so we can't find any links.

Once his lecture was done, he approached us, automatically reaching for Teresa. She snuggled into his arms, yawning. "Someone looks tired."

"She just woke up from a little nap. We went to the doctor this morning. I thought I had a mild case of food poisoning."

"Do you?" he asked worriedly, not even noticing the gaggle of women staring at him. Did they really not see me, his _wife_? Of course not. Did they not notice the wedding band on his finger? Apparently not.

"No. Um, you know how, a little while ago, we decided to go off the birth control and just see what happens?"

His brown eyes lit up. "Yes."

"Well, I'm pregnant again!"

"Oh, _querida_." He pressed his lips fiercely to mine. _Now_ the other women noticed me. They glared. I wrapped my arms around my husband's neck, making sure to flash my wedding ring at the onlookers. That's right, ladies. He's mine.

I pulled away, smiling. "There's more. I'm about one month along. Usually, women don't start showing symptoms until just a little bit later, although every woman is different and every pregnancy is different."

"So...Is there something wrong? Is there a reason you're showing symptoms early?"

"Yes, but it's not a bad reason. Nothing's wrong. It's...twins. We're having twins, Jesse. The doctor thinks that might be why I've already started my morning sickness. We saw both babies on the ultrasound. Twins, Jesse."

**Suze: Mom, I'm pregnant again.**

**Helen: Oh, wow. Susie, Teresa isn't even two yet. Are you sure you're ready for another one?**

**Suze: Actually, I'm ready for two more. Mom, Jesse and I are having twins.**

**Helen: Twi- Did you just say that you're having twins?**

**Suze: (smiling) I did. We're ready for this. And yeah, it's one more baby than we were expecting, but we'll be fine. **

**Helen: Well, all right. You two do make wonderful parents. How is Teresa taking the news? Have you explained it to her yet?**

**Suze: Uh, well. Kind of. Jesse explained it about as well as her little mind can understand, I think. She understands that she's going to have to share her Mommy and Daddy. And she is _not_ happy about it, let me tell you. She might get more excited when we start picking out clothes and she gets to help. She loves playing dress-up with her dolls. I'm sure she'll love it with her siblings, too.**


	9. Chapter 9

**To iheartbooks: Thanks for your review! I hadn't originally planned on having her getting pregnant so soon, but then it just seemed right. As she said earlier, she doesn't really care how many kids they have, and Jesse has always wanted a big family.**

**Again, all the characters belong to Meg Cabot. Two of Jesse's younger sisters, who I mentioned briefly in the first chapter, Anarosa and Sierra, do belong to Meg Cabot, although I made their names up. I couldn't find the names of all of his sisters in the books – Mercedes, Marta, and Josefina are all mentioned, so I gave the two youngest names. Teresa and the unborn twins are my characters.**

**Jesse is twenty-six, and Suze is twenty-one. Teresa is one year and eight months now.**

I slammed the car door to make sure my husband knew that I was pissed off at him. Why did he have to be so...stupid and overprotective? I could take care of myself. "Susannah," Jesse said loudly, "calm down. You don't need to be slamming the door."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, shut _up_," I snapped. "Don't tell me what to do. That's all you've been doing for the past eight months! And I'm sick and tired of it!" I hollered.

I pushed past David, who had opened the front door, and stomped into the house. I kept my hand under my very large stomach. I hated being pregnant with twins. Everything was twice as bad, I swear. My cravings had been even more weird than they were with Teresa. The morning sickness had been twice as miserable. And my hormones were even worse. I constantly felt like either screaming in frustration or crying my eyeballs out. Was it like this for every mother expecting twins, or was it just this pregnancy? Either way, I _hated_ it. And I especially hated it when my husband acted like an idiot when I already didn't feel good.

I plopped down onto the couch, still angry. "'Don't go after him, Susannah,' he says. 'You need to be careful. You don't want to hurt yourself,' he says. What an idiot. I totally had it under control," I muttered darkly. I mean, it wasn't like I really got hurt. I didn't understand what he was freaking out about. So maybe I fractured my wrist. But that was it. And I took care of the stupid ghost. He's long gone by now. Relaxing in the Shadowland.

"Susie, what's wrong?" my mom asked, sitting beside me.

I opened my mouth just as Jesse came in, holding the diaper bag and our daughter's hand. "What's _wrong_ is that my stupid husband keeps bossing me around, and trying to keep me from doing _anything_ at all."

"Susannah," he said with a sigh, "you are eight months pregnant."

"Yeah, I'm pregnant. _Not_ handicapped. Quit treating me like I'm some fragile piece of glass!"

He snorted. David lifted Teresa into his arms and left, muttering something about leaving "Mommy and Daddy alone to fight."

"You might not be handicapped, Susannah, but you are not invincible. I wouldn't get so worried about you if I didn't often come home to find you injured in some way or another."

"I fractured my wrist, Jesse. Not exactly a fatal injury. And it's your own fault Jonathan threw me against the wall. He wouldn't have tried to kill his cousin – which of course I had to stop – if _you_ hadn't mentioned that he could. Again. _Why_ do you have to put it in their heads? Can't you just keep your mouth shut? There are a few ghosts out there that don't know that they can kill, until _you_ go and put the idea into their heads."

"Do not try to blame this on me, Susannah. You should have called me when you found out what he was planning to do, not gone after him yourself. You could have gotten yourself or our unborn children killed. I was at the store with Teresa. I could have gone straight there to take care of it. Instead, you decided to run straight into danger and you got yourself hurt."

I slammed my fist into the couch cushion, which was entirely unsatisfying. I'm glad tat I'd hit it with my _un_fractured wrist, though. "There wasn't really any time! I was _right_ _there_, Jesse! You wouldn't have been able to get there in time."

"But you did not have to take Jonathan to the Shadowland." I noticed how he didn't say that I was right. Of course not. He would never admit that he wouldn't have been able to get there in time. Stupid macho image. "You should not have shifted there. We don't know if that can damage the babies, Susannah. It was a stupid risk to take."

"I had to –" I broke off with a gasp.

"Susannah?"

"The due date for the twins is June twenty-first, right?"

"Yes."

"And today is only May twentieth. Crap. This is not good. This is not good at all."

"What is not good, Susannah?" Jesse demanded, worried. His anger was momentarily replaced with concern. No matter how angry he might get with me, he always looked out for me and our babies. "What is wrong, _querida_?"

"I...I think I just felt a contraction."

He sat beside me, taking my hand. "Now? Was it very strong?" I knew he was worried, but he was keeping his calm. See, this was why he would make such an amazing ER doctor. He could keep his cool in possibly dangerous situations. He wouldn't panic like I felt I might do at any second.

"No. I barely even felt it at all." Was that a good thing? Did that mean that it was a fake labor contraction? I remembered having those the few days before Teresa had been born.

He sighed, sweeping my hair out of my face. "Maybe it was caused by the stress. We shouldn't be yelling at each other. Particularly if it could cause you to go into labor early."

I nodded. "Yeah. You're right."

"Tell me if you feel another contraction."

I nodded again. If he wasn't worried about it, I would try not to worry about it. One little contraction wasn't a big deal, right? It was just one contraction. If I had more, _then_ I could panic.

Teresa raced into the room, calling out, "Mommy!" David was behind her, trying to get her to go back to him. She ignored him and climbed into my lap, touching my large stomach. "Mommy mad? Daddy mad?"

I ran my fingers through her black hair, looking into her dark eyes. Her eyes were the same, extremely dark shade of brown as her father's. Just like with Jesse, I couldn't usually tell where her pupils began and her irises ended. It was something that I loved about her. I was so glad that she'd gotten his eyes, instead of my boring green ones. "Yes, Resa. Mommy got mad at Daddy. But she realizes now that she was very wrong and she's very sorry. Daddy was just trying to keep her and the twins safe."

Jesse shook his head, smiling. "And of course, Mommy won't say it directly to Daddy, so she says it to you."

Teresa nodded and smiled, even though she didn't _really_ understand what we were saying. "Happy now?"

I said, "Yes, baby. Daddy and I are happy now."

"So," Andy said awkwardly, "who's ready for dinner? Jake and Gina just pulled up."

"Where's Brad?" I asked, getting slowly to my feet. Jesse absently reached out and helped me. Brad should have known better than to be late to dinner, especially Sunday dinner. It just wasn't done in the Ackerman household, even for those of us who didn't actually live in the household anymore. Which was everybody except David.

"He and some of his friends are taking a road trip. They left yesterday."

"I see."

I sat down, just as Jake and Gina walked in. I smiled at them. "Are you two excited for July twelfth? You know, the day you get married?" Yes, I was okay with it. There wasn't really anything I could do about it now. They were getting married and I couldn't change that.

Gina rolled her eyes, plopping into the chair beside Teresa's high chair. Jake grunted and sat next to her. Wow. They weren't happy. I'd bet they weren't even playing footsie.

"I hate making wedding plans," my best friend grumbled.

I laughed. "So now you know how _I_ felt almost three years ago."

"Shut up, Simon. Have you two decided on names yet? You do know that you only have about a month or so until those two are here?" And she only wanted to change the subject. But whatever. "If not sooner. You look about to pop. Seriously, you're huge."

I glared at her. That was so not what I needed right then. I already felt fat enough. I was going to have to do my kick-boxing about four times a day to work off all this weight once the twins were born. "Thanks for that, Gina, really. _Not_. And yeah, we've picked out the names."

"Well?" Jake prompted, when I didn't say anything else. "What are they?"

"I'm not sure I want to tell you."

"Suze," my mom reprimanded.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Seriously? I was twenty-one! And I was married and had a daughter already! I was too old to be reprimanded by my mother.

"Okay, fine. If it's two boys, we'll name them Carlos Enrique and Luciano Reyes. If it's two girls, we'll name them Esmeralda Reyna and Estela Serena. And if it's just one of each, we'll name them Carlos and Esmeralda."

"We are certain that they are girls," Jesse said.

I looked at him. Since _when_ had I shared that opinion with him? Never. I did not think we were having girls. I was convinced it was one of each. "No, _you're_ certain it's girls. I don't agree. I think we've got a Carlos and an Esmeralda in here."

"How can you _stand_ it? Not knowing the genders, I mean?" Gina demanded. "It's driving me crazy, and they're not even my kids."

"Well, actually –"

"Dave, please don't start," I said. I could sense a long lecture about how much women love surprises or something like that. "I'm just not in the mood tonight. Gina –"

Andy cleared his throat, cutting me off. "I'm sorry to interrupt all of these lovely arguments that you guys keep having tonight," he said with more than a little sarcasm, "but can we get on with the meal?"

**Teresa: Mommy?**

**Suze: Yes, baby?**

**Teresa: How babies in tummy?**

**Suze: (blushing) Um...You know what? Why don't you ask Daddy that question? He knows how to explain it better than Mommy does.**

**Teresa: Daddy!**

**(She runs out of the room. Suze sighs in relief)**

**Jesse: (from another room in the house) Susannah!**

**Suze: Sorry, I'm busy! I can't help! **


	10. Chapter 10

**Here's the next chapter. Hope you all enjoy. And I apologize if I don't get a chance to update as regularly as I'd like to. I've got a bunch of college crap going on, so I might not have all that much time to work on this fanfiction.**

**Once again, most of the characters belong to Meg Cabot. I have a few of my own, and I'll let you know who they are. Their ages will also be put up at the beginning of each chapter. So if I give their age, and it's not Suze or Jesse, then it's definitely my own character.**

**Jesse is twenty-six, and Suze is twenty-one. Teresa is one year and ten months. And the twins who were recently born are only one month old.**

I bounced little Esmeralda, smiling as I watched Jake and Gina dance together. They actually were a cute couple. And they were happy together. That was the important thing.

"You can't even tell the twins were born eighteen days early," Brad said, starling me. I looked at him, dressed up in his tux. I hated to admit it, but he actually looked good.

"I know. But really, eighteen days isn't much for twins, I guess. It was still a surprise for me to go into labor on the third instead of the twenty-first."

"Where's Estela? Or are you holding Estela? I can never tell them apart."

I laughed. It was true. The twins were identical. They each had small things that they did that let me and Jesse tell them apart, but we kept little bracelets on their wrists just in case. Their bracelets had their names engraved on them. "I know. I've got Esmeralda. Jesse took her twin to change her diaper. And Mom has Teresa around here somewhere."

He shook his head. "You know, when you first moved in, I never would have thought you would be the first one to get married and have kids. But…it suits you."

"Was that…a compliment, Brad? Were you saying something nice about me, to my face?"

"So what if I was?" he asked with a scowl. He had changed a lot since high school, but he was still Brad. "You annoy the crap out of me, Suze, but you're still my sister. Do you mind if I hold Esmeralda?"

"Not at all. She's a little fussy, though, just so you know."

I passed my young daughter to my brother. I always loved the look on Brad's face when he held one of his nieces. He didn't look as…mean as usual.

"Mommy," Teresa said, colliding with my legs. "Mommy, saw pewson. Gamma no see."

I looked up at my mom, a frown on my face. "What is she talking about?"

"I don't know. She was pointing to that corner over there, but there's nothing there."

With a sinking stomach, I looked. I had a feeling that I knew exactly what my baby girl was talking about. "See, Mommy?" Teresa asked.

Boy, did I ever.

A ghost.

At my brother and best friend's wedding reception.

"Hew aw gowing, Mommy."

"Teresa, stay with Grandma, okay? Mom, have you seen Jesse?"

"I'm right here, Susannah. Is something wrong?"

I looked up at him. He was holding Estela against his shoulder, patting her back lightly. "Yeah. We've got a little glowing friend here."

"Here?"

"That corner" I said, and pointed. "Teresa saw her."

He sighed. "I thought that would happen. She was bound to have the ability. Do you want me to go talk to her?"

"Yes. I'll take Stela."

He gave me the baby and made his way to the corner to talk to the ghost. "What was that all about?" Brad demanded.

"There's a ghost in that corner. Jesse's going to go talk to her."

"That is so weird."

"Whatever."

"Suze," Mom said, "how are you handling the twins?" Once she had time to get used to it, the whole ghost thing didn't freak her out anymore. Brad was still trying to come to terms with the idea. Everybody else hardly thought about it anymore.

I sighed. "We're both exhausted, like, all the time. Jesse actually skipped class yesterday. He never skips."

"He's taking classes this summer?"

I nodded. "I know. I told him he was crazy. But he wants to get through med school as fast as he can, so he's taking classes every term, even the summer. But he stayed home yesterday to help me with the girls."

"That was very nice of him."

"I sure appreciated it. The twins are…very demanding. I love them, though. And all three of my girls are so beautiful. Teresa's got Jesse's looks – his skin, hair, and eyes. But Esme and Stela, they have Jesse's hair and my eyes. And their skin tone is somewhere right in between. It makes me wonder what their future siblings will look like."

Mom's eyes widened. "Are you pregnant _again_?"

"What? _No_. Oh, hel- heck," I said quickly, watching Teresa watch me, "no. We are not planning to have any more kids for a while. I am _done_. For about five years or so." Okay, _that_ might have been a _bit_ of an exaggeration. Okay, so it was a big exaggeration. I would probably be ready to have more kids in about two years.

"I thought you said you didn't want more than two. Now you have three."

I told her that? Damn. When? "Uh…Okay, here's the thing. My absolute max is, like, seven kids. Jesse wants six, because that's how many kids his parents had and they were all really happy. I don't _really_ care how many we have. I mean, he's already lost so much and had to sit around for a hundred and fifty years. Who I am to not let him have the large family he's always dreamed of?"

"Oh, Susie. You are such a wonderful person. You make so many sacrifices for everyone else."

I shrugged. "Not really. I'll be happy if we just have Teresa, Esmeralda, and Estela. But I'll be happy if we have more. I would kind of like one boy. And Brad," I said sternly, "don't you dare say a word to Jesse. I want him to think that I'm done. Maybe he won't ask for more kids."

"Uh, Suze." Brad nodded to something behind me.

Oh, crap. He was right behind me, I was sure. I turned and looked up at my husband. "Oh. Hi, Jesse." Maybe he hadn't heard what I'd been talking about. Doubtful, but hey, there was always a chance.

He grinned. "Hello, Susannah. I already knew that you would be all right with more children, so there's no need to make your brother promise anything."

I lifted my chin, trying desperately to cling to my deception. "I would not. Three is more than enough."

He jutted out his lower lip just a bit. He was pouting! Since _when_ did Jesse de Silva _pout_? That was _my_ expertise! He was supposed to be the mature one. He was always saying that I was the childish and immature one, and yet here he was, pouting. "But, Susannah, we haven't had a boy yet. I really would like a boy to carry on the de Silva name."

"Did you take care of the ghost yet?" I asked, ignoring his comment.

"Yes. I have a phone call to make now, actually. If you will excuse me."

With that, he headed outside. I sighed, watching him go. He looked so good in his tux. I seriously didn't know why he hated them so much. Did he not know he was the hottest guy ever, and those pants made his a–

"Suze. Earth to Suze," David said. He was waving his hand in front of my face.

I blinked. "Oh. Hey, Dave."

"Hey, Suze. Do you mind if I hold Estela? Gina's on her way over, and she probably wants to talk to you."

I gave him the baby just as Gina got to me. She looked stunning in her almost golden-colored gown. It looked perfect with her mocha skin. And now that her hair was back to its natural dark brown, it looked…Well, stunning. Then again, Gina always looked stunning. She pulled me into a hug. "Thank you, for all your help."

"Oh, that. Not a problem, G."

"And you're not weirded out at all? That I'm married to your brother, I mean?"

I thought about it. Was I weirded out? Did I find it a little gross?

"No," I said truthfully. "I just want you to be happy, Gina. Jake makes you happy. And if you were okay with me marrying an ex-ghost, I'm okay with you marrying my brother."

"Are you kidding me? I don't care if he used to be dead or not. Jesse is just about the hottest thing to ever walk this planet."

"Gina."

"What? You know how I am about Latino guys."

I sighed. "Yeah, I know."

She looked back when Jake called her name. She smirked. "I gotta go. We're leaving for our honeymoon. Gonna party tonight!"

I grimaced. "Mental images I did _not_ need, Gina!" I yelled after her.

**Suze: No.**

**Gina: Please? Come on, what's the big deal.**

**Suze: Absolutely not.**

**Gina: I'm getting married tomorrow. Why can't you just do this? It's one little favor.**

**Suze: I said no.**

**Gina: Are you afraid of a little ghost? Seriously?**

**Suze: Gina! I am not going to perform a seance at your and Jake's new apartment! Don't ask me again. Seances are just stupid. If you want, I will go and see if there's actually a ghost there.**

**Gina: And then will you -**

**Suze: NO SEANCES!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Here's the next chapter. Hope you're all enjoying it.**

**Jesse is twenty-seven, and Suze is now twenty-two. Teresa is two and a half years old. Esmeralda and Estela are nine months. **

Sighing, I sank onto the couch. Finally, all three of the girls were down for their naps. Having twins was no joke. Everything was, literally, twice as much work. I was so glad that we hadn't had triplets. I would have died. Seriously. The twins themselves were tiring enough, but Teresa was two and a half now.

And she was a little nightmare.

I was so glad that Jesse was going to be coming home at lunch, and he was going to stay home the rest of the day. I was so glad that his schedule had become a little more flexible since he'd started his clinical experiences. I needed his help.

Why did I think it would be _fun_ to have more kids so close to Teresa? Jesse and I should have waited, like, five years before we had more kids. I don't know _how_ Jesse's mom raised _six_ kids without going crazy. I was having a hard time staying sane with just _three_ kids. Then again, the ages were a little more spread out, and I was sure Jesse had helped with his sisters a lot.

I reached for one of Jesse's thick books that was sitting on the coffee table. He should have known better than to leave it there. It would end up with sticky little fingerprints all over it. What was he reading about, anyway?

_Diseases of the 21__st__ Century_?

My husband was so weird. But I was bored out of my mind and I didn't really want to get up to get something to entertain myself. And I was a tiny bit curious. How could he _stand_ it? This crap had to be boring. I opened to a random page and started reading.

"Mommy!"

I jerked awake, the book falling off my chest. I must have fallen asleep reading the stupid thing. Sighing, I got to my feet and went to Teresa's room. She was sitting in the middle of her toddler bed, crying. She pointed to her stuffed Perry the Platypus. Yes, she was obsessed with that show. Jesse thought it was pretty funny, too, which just didn't make any sense to me since he didn't even like _E.T._ I mean, sure, _Phineas & Ferb_ was cute and all, but it was silly. I didn't think Jesse, of all people, would like it.

Anyway, Resa pointed to her toy and said, "Mommy. Need Pewwy."

I sighed. "And why can't you get him by yourself? You're a big girl."

She shook her head. "I not."

I lifted an eyebrow. She had been more needy since the twins had been born, but this was the first time she'd said that she wasn't a big girl. She'd been very insistent about her big girl status for the past nine months. "You're not?"

Again, she shook her head. "No. I baby, wike twins. Need Mommy aw da time."

I felt myself smile, understanding what was going on. It was a cry for attention, that was all. She'd decided a new tactic to get my attention. She was feeling left out, and she wasn't totally unjustified in that feeling. I had been extremely busy with Esmeralda and Estela lately.

"Oh, baby," I said. I sat on the ground near her bed and pulled her into my lap. I hugged her close, smoothing my hands over her hair. "You know that Mommy loves you, right? I'll always love you, sweetie. I love you, and Daddy, and Esme, and Stela. I love you all lots."

"Pom?" she whispered.

"I promise." I kissed the top of her head. "And no matter how many babies Mommy and Daddy have, we'll love everybody the same. Okay?"

"Okay. Wuv you, Mommy."

"I love you, too. Are you still tired, sweetie?"

"No."

I smiled. That's what I figured she'd say. "Okay, then. Why don't you come with me into the kitchen and we'll get a little snack?"

She immediately jumped off of my lap. "Okay!"

I put my finger to my lips as I got to my feet. "Shh. You don't want to wake your sisters up, do you?" She shook her head and followed me into the kitchen. I knew she wanted to spend a little bit of time with just me. I got her some apple slices with a little bit of peanut butter and got her settled at the kitchen table.

She was about halfway done eating, and had started telling me about her dream, when the phone rang. "Hold on a little bit, Resa. I have to answer that."

She kept munching on her apples, so I picked up the phone and answered, "Hello, de Silva residence. This is Susannah speaking."

"Hey, Suze," CeeCee said, sounding a bit breathless.

"Cee, what's up?"

"Um…Okay, do you remember how I called you back in November? After Adam and I went to that party?"

I had to laugh. That had been so funny. She'd been talking about purple dogs or something. "Yeah, and you both got so drunk that you couldn't drive and Jesse had to pick you up and take you home." I would have done it myself, when she had called, but I'd been busy feeding the twins. Jesse had been a bit disgusted. Apparently, when he'd dropped them off at their apartment, the first thing they did was race to the bedroom. Jesse still didn't approve of couples living together before marriage. He's gotten used to most modern day things, but living together is not one of them.

"Yeah, um. Well, you know how I haven't found a birth control brand that doesn't cause an allergic reaction. And I think that we kind of forgot to use any other kind of protection that night. And now I'm…pregnant. I'm fifteen weeks."

I froze. That had not been what I'd been expecting. "When did you find out?"

"I took a home test yesterday, and went today to find out how far along I was and everything. We're having a boy."

She was having a boy? I wanted one of those. I said, "I'm so jealous of you," just as Jesse walked in.

Teresa dropped her last apple slice. "Daddy!" she yelled, climbing down from the booth. She raced toward her father.

"I'm guessing Jesse's home?"

"Yeah. So how are you feeling about this, Cee? You didn't sound all that excited."

She sighed. "I'm nervous. I mean, Adam and I haven't planned for anything like this. We haven't talked about it. And…I'm a little scared, to be honest."

"CeeCee," I said, "you have told your boyfriend that you're pregnant, haven't you? I mean, it's his kid, too. He deserves to know."

"Well, actually…"

I gasped. "It is his baby, right?"

"Of course it's Adam's baby," she snapped.

"Wait, what?" I heard Adam say in the background. Either he had just entered the room and she didn't notice, or he had just come home and she didn't notice. "CeeCee, _what's_ my baby?"

"Uh, hi, Adam," she said. "Suze, what do I do?"

"Tell him, dummy."

"Adam, I'm pregnant."

I smacked my forehead. That had _not_ been what I'd meant. I'd meant that she should have told him _after_ she got off the phone with me.

Adam whooped. I smiled. At least he wasn't angry or anything. That was good. "Hey, Cee? I'm going to get off the phone. It sounds like you and your boyfriend have some celebrating to do. And next time, wait until after I hang up to tell him."

"Yeah, okay, whatever," she said, and hung up.

I returned the phone to its jack and turned around. Jesse had Teresa in his arms and was listening intently to her as she told him all about her dream. A small smile pulled at his lips. It was obvious how much he loved his daughter. He always made time for his daughters.

**Teresa: And den, Daddy, da beaw came. It cawed aw Mommy's pwetty fowuhs.**

**Jesse: (smiling) Oh my. It sounds like this dream of yours was very exciting, **_**carina**_**. Did it frighten you at all?**

**Teresa: (shaking head) No. I big giwl, Daddy. I no scawe, evuh.**

**Suze: (rolling eyes) That's not what you said earlier, Resa.**

**Teresa: (looking innocently at Jesse) Mommy cwazy.**

**Jesse: (smirking) I know.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Jesse is twenty-seven, and Suze is still twenty-two. Teresa is two years and eight months. Esmeralda and Estela are now one year old.**

Smiling, I set the small cake in front of the twins. Jesse had Teresa on his shoulders, and the rest of our family was in a circle around the two birthday girls.

Esmeralda and Estela looked at each other, and then started smashing their little fists into the cake. I grimaced. "Great. This is going to be a disaster to clean up," I muttered. They were flinging it everywhere.

Jesse smiled at me. "Let them make a mess, Susannah. It's their first birthday. If you'd like, I'll clean it up once they're done."

"I'd like that a lot, thank you," I told him. I shook my head, watching my twins throw food at each other. And their uncles and grandparents. David, Brad, Andy, and Mom were pouring attention over the two girls, hardly even noticing the cake getting on them. Babies really do turn people into saps. It's amazing. Gina and Jake stood back, huge smiles on their faces.

I frowned. "Okay. What in the world are you two so happy about?"

Their smiles widened. Seriously, it was scary. "Oh, nothing, really," Gina said evasively.

I narrowed my eyes. This was starting to sound like the tone that Gina used when she was bored. Almost, but not quite. It was a little different, but I couldn't quite figure out how. I didn't think I'd ever heard her use that exact tone before. "Hey, Gina? How many years have we been best friends? What is going on? I do expect you to tell me."

She looked up at her husband. "Should we tell them?"

He nodded. "Sure, G."

She cleared her throat, getting everybody's – except the twins' – attention. I had a feeling that I knew what was coming. She just had that look about her. And she had said that they were going to try, practically as soon as the honeymoon was over. "We have some news. Jake and I are going to have a baby! I'm about a month and a half along."

Mom shrieked, pulling Gina into a tight hug.

I grinned. "I _knew_ it. Jeez, why is everybody getting pregnant lately? First CeeCee, and now you."

Gina smirked at me. "You're next."

I shook my head vehemently. "Nope. No way. That is not happening again for a while, I promise, if it happens at all. We're happy with the three girls that we have now. We do not need to add any more kids."

Jesse ducked his head to hide a grin. I elbowed him lightly. When nobody was looking, of course.

The doorbell rang. Jesse and I both moved toward it. Teresa clapped her hands together. "Daddy, wun."

"_Ahora no, carina_."

She folded her arms and pouted. Ignoring her, I opened the door. "Well, that's a Suze face if I've ever seen one," Paul Slater said, looking at my daughter.

I grinned and leaned against the doorframe. "She does like to copy me a lot. I'm telling you, you never realize how much you swear until you have a child that loves to parrot what you say. What are you doing here, Paul? I thought you were back in Seattle. And who's the lady friend?"

The woman standing next to him was holding his hand, so she was obviously a girlfriend. She looked about nineteen or twenty, with pale skin and dark blonde hair. Her eyes were a really cool, blue-grey color.

"Oh. Suze, this is Anselma Osterhagen. Selma, this is Susannah de Silva and her husband, Jesse de Silva. And that must be little Teresa, their oldest daughter, though it's my first chance to actually meet her."

"Girlfriend, huh? How long have you two been dating? Where did you meet?"

"Susannah," Jesse said softly, "perhaps we should invite them in. They would be more comfortable in the living room, and maybe they would like a slice of cake."

"Cake?" Paul repeated, pulling Anselma inside. "Oh, right. Today is the twins' birthday, isn't it?" Jesse and I nodded. "We'll pass on the cake, but thanks. We just stopped by to chat."

"Have a seat, then."

The four of us sat down. Jesse took Resa from his shoulders and held her in his arms. She cuddled into his side. "Who dat, Daddy?" she asked, looking curiously at our guests.

"That's Paul. He's a friend of Mommy and Daddy's."

She gave Paul a toothy grin and waved. "Hi, Paw. I Tewesa. Who hew?"

He smiled, and he actually looked genuinely happy and entertained. Eight years ago, I would never have believed that _Paul_ _Slater_ would actually enjoy listening to a little girl who was only two and a half. "This is my girlfriend, Anselma. Teresa is a beautiful name. And how old are you?"

She held up three fingers and proudly said, "Dis many!"

Laughing, Jesse put one of her fingers down. "Not just yet, Teresa. In six months."

"And the twins are Esmeralda and Estela, right?"

I nodded. "I tend to call them Esme and Stela, though. And Teresa gets called Resa a lot. So, tell me more about Anselma. Where and when did you two meet? And are you still going to school in Seattle?"

"I'm actually moving back here. I've transferred schools. My grandpa changed his will, shortly before he died, and left his house to me. We got a lot closer in his last few months, thanks to you."

"And please, just call me Selma," his girlfriend added, in a thick accent.

"German?" I guessed.

She nodded, a small smile pulling at her lips. "Yes. I was born in America, but my parents had both grown up in Germany, and we visited my grandparents every summer. I spent the last year there, living with my mom's parents, while studying abroad for college."

"And I was dealing with a ghost who had some things that needed to be taken care of in Germany. I met Selma there. She helped me."

"I'm also a shifter. I've read all of Dr. Slaski's published works. I can't believe that he was Paul's grandfather."

"Anyway, we started dating, and…Well, I kind of…fell in love with her."

I was stunned. "You met another shifter? I thought we were the only three after Dr. Slaski passed away. And Paul Slater fell in love with someone? Real love?"

Paul rolled his eyes. "Don't act so surprised, Suze. Yeah, I fell in love with her. And guess what else?" he asked, his voice tinged with sarcasm. Jeez. Did he have to be rude about it? Oh, wait. He was Paul. "She fell in love with me, too. And of course we weren't the only shifters."

"Oh, shut up. How did you get her to fall for you? You didn't tie her up in a barn, did you? Because that _so_ didn't work last time."

He rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha. That's a good one, Suze. No, I didn't. I've changed."

"I noticed. I heard from Jack that you're not going to be a criminal attorney, like you were originally planning. You've decided to become a prosecutor?"

He shrugged and, unless I was totally mistaken, look a bit embarrassed. "Yeah, so? I've had a change of heart."

Jesse and I grinned. "Ah, so the evil Paul Slater has discovered that he actually enjoys helping people," I said.

He sighed. "Yes. Now, do you I get to meet these twins or not?"

"Sure. Come on."

**Esmeralda & Estela: No!**

**Suze: Please, just let me give you two a bath. You have a party in an hour. Everybody's coming over. Don't you want to look beautiful for them?**

**Esmeralda & Estela: No!**

**Suze: I swear, is that the only word you two know?**

**Esmeralda & Estela: No!**

**Suze: Girls, you have to have a bath, whether you like it or not. Now get over here.**

**Esmeralda & Estela: (getting up and running to the other side of the bathroom, giggling) No.**

**Jesse: (entering the room) Esmeralda Reyna and Estela Serena. Why are you not doing as your mother told you?**

**Esmeralda & Estela: (looking down) Sowwy.**

**Suze: Why do they always listen to you? It's just not fair.**


	13. Chapter 13

**It should be pretty obvious what's going to happen in this chapter, once you start reading it. I'm not really trying to be subtle with the clues or anything, in case you're thinking that I'm crappy at leaving small hints, since they're not really small hints.**

**Jesse is twenty-seven, and Suze is twenty-three. Teresa is three years. Esmeralda and Estela are one year and five months old. And CeeCee and Adam's baby has been born and is now three months old.**

I couldn't believe it. I really couldn't. I swear, there had to be something in the water here. There just had to be. That was the only possible explanation. Because there was just no way. No freaking way.

First CeeCee got pregnant. Little Matthew Scott McTavish had been born in August. He was an adorable baby. Looked just like Adam, except a lot cuter. CeeCee was happy that he wasn't an albino like she was, which I totally didn't blame her. There were so many things that CeeCee had to do to keep herself safe from the sun. She shouldn't have to do that for her child, too.

Then Gina got pregnant. Nathaniel Lee Ackerman was due next month. He was going to be my first nephew ever. I was kind of excited about that. And it would be interesting to see what he looked like. Gina was more mocha in color, and Jake had a tan skin tone, but most of that was from all the time he spent at the beach. His skin was actually kind of pale.

Then Paul told me that Selma was expecting. She was due in April, a little girl. Paul was actually excited, and had told me that he and Selma were going to get married eventually. He hadn't actually proposed yet or anything, but they had discussed it.

And now this.

Again.

It was all because of those stupid antibiotics that I had to take back in August. I thought we'd been careful enough. I thought we'd be okay if we went back to just _one_ form of protection once I was done with the antibiotics.

Apparently, I was wrong.

"_Querida_? What are you doing on the floor of the bathroom?"

I looked up at Jesse, who was holding both of the twins. They were wide awake, chewing on their fists. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I couldn't say anything. Why couldn't I just tell him? It wasn't that hard. At least, it shouldn't be that hard. For some reason, I couldn't talk past the lump in my throat.

Jesse started to look a little worried. "Susannah, are you all right?"

"No," I finally gasped, "I'm not. I can't do it, Jesse. I'm already overwhelmed." I started rambling, feeling tears well up in my eyes. Great. Now I was crying, too. Damn hormones. _Again_. They were the worst, I swear. "There's Teresa, and the twins. And then you're always off at work or doing your clinical stuff. Ghosts show up all the time, and –"

"Susannah," he cut in. "Slow down. I can hardly understand a word of what you're saying. Now, what is the matter?"

Without saying a word, I handed him the stick. He had to do a little bit of shifting to be able to take it from me. He frowned, looking at it.

"What does this stick have to do with anything? And why does it have two lines on it?"

He didn't know what it was. I groaned and nearly hit my head against the wall of the master bathroom. I really didn't want to have to explain it to him, but it looked like I would have to. I mean, the guy had been born in freaking 1830. Why would he know what the stick was? The first two times, we'd found out at a doctor's office. I'd never done a home test before. "It's a pregnancy test, Jesse. The two lines means that it's positive. I'm pregnant again."

He stared at me. "You're…But –"

"I know. I think my antibiotics in August screwed up my birth control. Because I have been very diligent about taking it every single day. And I must have still had them in my system when we stopped using the second form of birth control."

"When did you decide to take this test?"

"I actually bought the test a couple of days ago. I finally got the courage today to actually do it. My periods have been extremely light. Well, I thought I was having periods. It must have just been spotting. And I've been sick. And I've been craving pickles and Oreos again. That was my biggest clue. And look."

I lifted my shirt a bit. "I'm starting to get a baby bump."

He leaned against the wall, ignoring Esmeralda and Estela as they yanked on his hair. "A baby…"

"Jesse, I can't do it. I can't handle a fourth baby, I just can't." I blinked rapidly, trying to get rid of the tears that were still filling my eyes. Damn, some had rolled down my cheeks! Ugh, I _hated_ crying!

"I'll be back in just a moment, _querida_. Don't move."

I almost laughed. As if I could. I felt frozen in place. He left, setting the test on the counter. I glared at that little stick. In my mind, it was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to me at that time. Okay, not quite the worst. I would love any child that I had. I already did love this new baby. That wasn't the problem. It was the freaking timing. I mean, we had just started potty-training Teresa. How in the world would I handle _four_ kids in diapers and pull-ups?

The answer was that I wouldn't. I would finally go crazy. I would have to go back to the therapist. And this time it would be for real.

Then Jesse was back, baby free. He sat beside me and pulled me into a loving hug. I knew something was seriously wrong with me when I couldn't even appreciate his chiseled chest.

"Where are the twins?" I sniffed. "And Teresa?"

"Teresa is in the living room, watching a movie. There is a baby-gate in each doorway, so she cannot escape. Esmeralda and Estela are in their crib in their bedroom."

I nodded.

"Susannah, I know that you feel overwhelmed, but –"

I snorted. "You think?"

He kissed my forehead. "We can do this, though. God has seen fit to bless us with another child, so He must believe that we can do this."

"Easy for you to say," I grumbled. "You don't have to stay home with them all day."

"Susannah." He took my face between his hands and forced me to stare into his liquid eyes. They looked almost black. "_Te __amo__, querida. Podemos hacer esto. Usted es una madre maravillosa. Teresa, Esmeralda, y Estela te amo. Se que usted puede hacer esto_."

I grinned slightly. "Jesse, I didn't understand a word of that. Well, okay. I understood a few words."

"You can handle it, Susannah. I know you can."

"That's not the same thing you just said in Spanish," I complained.

Smiling, Jesse stood up and then pulled me gently to my feet. "Shall we go tell our daughters? And then we can inform your family."

I groaned, but allowed him to lead me to the twins' bedroom. "Great. Just what we need. Do you know what Brad will probably say? 'Jeez, Suze. You two go at it more than a pair of bunny rabbits.' So not a conversation I need to have."

Jesse ignored me. He just picked Esme up and kissed her cheek. I lifted Stela into my arms, smiling at her. "Hi, baby."

"Mommy."

"That's me. And who's that, Stel, holding Esme? Who is that?" I pointed to her father.

She bounced. "Daddy, Daddy!"

"Good job."

We went into the living room, stepping carefully over the gates. Teresa was sitting on the couch, half of her room piled around her, her eyes glued to the screen. I gave Jesse a look.

"What?" he said quietly. "She carried them all out here herself, and I told her that she had to put each toy away by herself."

"Resa," I called.

She looked up at me. "Mommy, why sad?"

"I'm not sad. I'm just…really surprised. Is it okay if I turn off the movie? Daddy and I have something to tell you."

"Did you see da gowing ting in da potty woom, too? Da one Gamma and Gampa no see?"

I frowned as I turned off the television. "What? Is there a ghost in the bathroom?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh. I saw him today. Gamma and Gampa no see da gowing tings?"

"No, they can't. Jesse, we'll have to deal with that in just a little bit. Resa, that's not what we wanted to talk to you about. We're going to have a new baby, Teresa. You're going to have a new brother or sister."

She shrugged. "Okay. Watz movie now?"

That was all she had to say? Wow. That made things a lot easier. I started her movie again, feeling a little better.

And then Jesse said, "Now let's call your parents."

He just had to ruin my moment.

**Suze: Uh, Mom? I have some news for you.**

**Helen: What is it, sweetie?**

**Suze: Well…You know what? Talk to Jesse. He can tell you.**

**(she passes the phone to Jesse)**

**Jesse: (frowning at her) Susannah, I thought we agreed that you would tell her.**

**Suze: Yeah, well, that was before I chickened out. **

**Jesse: (sighing) Mrs. Ackerman, we wanted to call and tell you that we're expecting again. We're going to have a fourth baby.**

**(silence)**

**Jesse: Mrs. Ackerman?**

**(Suze takes the phone)**

**Suze: Mom? Uh, Jesse, I think she passed out.**


	14. Chapter 14

**I know that it's totally crazy that she got pregnant again. I promise it won't happen again for a while (if at all). **

**Jesse is twenty-eight, and Suze is twenty-three. Teresa is three. Esmeralda and Estela are a year and ten months old. Matthew is eight months. Nathaniel has been born and is three months. Addison, Paul and Selma's daughter, is now a month old. **

I stared down at my fourth daughter. She was beautiful, she really was. She had my skin and Jesse's eyes. Her hair was a really light brown, so I was certain it would darken as she got older. She was the smallest of all of my daughters, even smaller than the twins. I would have been worried if the nurse hadn't assured me that she was entirely healthy.

All of my daughters were beautiful.

"Rosalinda Calida de Silva," my mom whispered, looking down at me and my baby. Jesse was out informing the others and entertaining the older three. He and Mom had both been with me every second of the labor. I had found, now that I'd already done it twice, I could get through the labor a little better without any drugs. Each birth had been natural, and I was obscenely proud of that fact. See? I could be strong, just like the women of Jesse's day. I could give birth without a bunch of painkillers. "I love that name."

"I do, too. It fits her so well. I've already started calling her Rosa, though."

"I noticed that. Rosa is a cute nickname, though. Jesse never uses nicknames, does he? Besides _querida_ for you and _carina_ for the girls. Why is that?"

"Oh, he thinks that people should be called by the name they were given. I think it's really just the era he was born in. I just don't think that they used nicknames quite as much as we do now. Most of the time, they stuck with the birth names. Unless that name was Hector."

"Well, can you blame him? Hector?"

I giggled. "Yeah, I know. He hates it. He gets mad whenever I call him Hector Jesse de Silva."

"Susannah, what are you saying about me?" he asked, coming into the room.

"Nothing, dear," I said innocently.

"Mmm-hmm. Look who I found. They wanted to come see you."

I looked up. Paul and Selma stood in the doorway. Paul was holding their month-and-a-half-old daughter, Addison Mae.

That girl was going to be a heartbreaker when she got older, I could just tell. She already had her father's curly brown hair and ocean blue eyes. I smiled at them. "Hey, guys. How's little Addy?"

"Loud and exhausting," Paul answered. "But worth it. And Jack's been staying with us for a few days. Even though he's fifteen, he's actually been a lot of help."

"Wait, Jack's staying with you? In the house in Carmel, California that you inherited from your grandfather? What about school? It's May twenty-second. He shouldn't be out for summer quiet yet."

"He actually got out last week, Suze. And he's decided to move in with us, so he'll be transferring to the Mission Academy. He got tired of Mom and Dad ignoring him all the time."

"He's been here for a few days? And you didn't bring him by to see me?"

"Well, you were about to pop. I didn't think it was the smartest idea."

"Where is he now, then? Why isn't he here? You know, I taught that kid how to swim. He could at least –"

"Hey, Suze," I heard Jack say.

I smiled. I had a soft spot for this kid, I really did. Although, he was looking a lot less like a _kid_, and more like a…

Well, a hottie.

I mean it. He was looking a lot more like his older brother. I hadn't seen him in about seven or so years. Yeah, sure, we'd written letters and sent emails and stuff, but I hadn't actually _seen_ him. And the few pictures I'd gotten didn't do him justice.

"Wow, Jack. You've really grown up."

He grinned. "I know. It's been forever since we've seen each other. How are you?"

"Uh, do you see the baby in my arms? I'm exhausted. And I've got three more hyper girls out there."

"I know. Teresa was chatting my ear off. You've got quite a variety in looks. This little one has your hair and skin. What color are her eyes?"

"Brown, a little lighter than Jesse's and Teresa's."

"So, you're going to have another one in about a year and a half, right?" he asked.

"No!" I exclaimed.

Jack just laughed. It was moments like this that I was able to see a bit of his older brother in him. Jack did have a cruel side. It just didn't make itself known very often.

Mom smiled and kissed my cheek. She lightly tapped Rosa's nose. "I'll let you have a few minutes. I'm sure the twins are keeping their uncles more than busy out there. And Andy is probably going crazy."

I winced. I didn't even want to think about what the twins were doing at that moment. It was sure to be bad. Those two were little stinkers. "Please make sure they don't try to use Nathaniel as a rag doll. They seem to keep forgetting that their cousin is _not_ a toy for them to play with."

"I will," she promised as she left.

I looked at Jack. "So, _why_ did you decide to move in with your brother?"

He grinned, glancing at Paul. "Well, I have to make sure my niece doesn't turn out like him. Plus, I have to spoil her rotten. It's my prerogative as an uncle."

"Hey, watch it, champ," Paul warned. "Remember that statement for when you start having kids. Then it'll be my turn to spoil your kids just as badly as you spoil mine. Maybe worse."

I couldn't help but smile. It really was nice to see them interact like this. They actually acted like they cared about each other. It was a nice change. And I still couldn't believe how much Jack had changed. He seriously looked like a younger version of Paul.

It was a little creepy, actually.

"So how's life been, Jack, since the last time we talked?"

He shrugged, taking a seat next to my hospital bed. Paul gestured for Selma to sit in one of the other chairs in the room, then handed her the baby. "Rebeka and I broke up the week before last," Jack said. "I was getting ready to move, and we just didn't really want to do a long-distance relationship."

"Well, there are plenty of nice girls here in Carmel. I think."

Jesse shook his head. "You are not much help, Susannah."

"Well, I –"

"Daddy!" Teresa called, hurrying into the room. Tears were streaming down her little cheeks. She ran to her father and tightly hugged his legs. "Daddy, I paying wif my Pewwy, and…and Stey take him fwom me! See won't give back."

Jesse picked her up and placed her in his lap. He kissed her cheek. "I'll take care of it in just a moment, _carina_. Right now, Mommy and Daddy are talking to Paul and his brother, Jack. And it won't hurt you to let your sister play with your toy for just a little –"

From out in the hall, I heard Stela give a small shriek, which meant that Mom had probably taken the toy from her to give back to Resa. She and Esmeralda loved to take their big sister's toys. And then they got upset when we tried to give the toys back to Teresa. It was a nightmare.

And it was just going to get worse.

**Suze: Jesse!**

**Jesse: What is it, Susannah?**

**Suze: I'm really hungry.**

**Jesse: (sighing) Would you like me to get you some Oreos with pickles?**

**Suze: (beaming) Yes, please. That sounds so good.**

**Jesse: (lightly touching her rounded belly) With the first two pregnancies, the craving for that faded by the end of the seventh month. This time, the craving seems to be getting stronger. **

**Suze: Yeah, so hurry up and get it for me.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Jesse is twenty-nine, and Suze is twenty-four. Teresa is four. Esmeralda and Estela are three. CeeCee and Adam's baby, Matthew, is one year and ten months. Nathaniel is one year and five months. Addison is one year and two months. And Rosalinda is one year and one month.**

"Jesse!" I hollered, hurrying inside the house with the mail. One particular envelope had gotten my attention. He had been working so hard for this. I was so proud of him.

I ran in the living room, where Jesse had all four girls. Resa was playing with a pile of fairy dolls. Esme and Stela were huddled together, helping each other color a picture and whispering secrets back and forth. And Rosalinda was asleep in her playpen, snoring loudly. She always slept with her butt lifted in the air. I didn't understand it.

"Susannah," Jesse said, looking up from his thick book, "what is the matter? What are you yelling about?"

"Look at what was in the mail today. Look at it."

"I could if you would stop waving it in my face, _querida_."

I dropped it into his lap. He looked at the return address and smiled. It was always so hard to read his emotions, but I could tell that he was beyond excited about this. He carefully opened the envelope.

Teresa looked up. "What is dat, Daddy?"

Jesse's smile widened as he pulled the contents out of the envelope. "This is Daddy's Doctor of Medicine degree, Teresa. This is what Daddy's been going to school to get."

"Now Daddy can start working at the hospital," I added. "He's going to fix people up when they get hurt." Well, he was actually going to be starting his residency, and wouldn't be able to get his actual medical license for a few years. But still. This was a huge accomplishment.

Teresa clapped her hands. "Yay, Daddy."

I hugged Jesse tightly. "I'm so proud of you, Jesse."

I was just about to press a kiss to his lips when I heard someone clear their throat.

Gosh, be a mood killer, huh? Not that one of the girls wouldn't have done something to interrupt us, but still. It was my house! I shouldn't be interrupting kissing my husband by annoying people I know!

I looked back, ready to yell at whoever was ruining my Jesse time. My scowl deepened when I saw that it wasn't, as I'd assumed, one of my obnoxious brothers.

And I couldn't, as I'd briefly considered, kill the guy. Because guess what? He was already dead. "What do you want?" I demanded. Hey, can you blame me? He had cut short my make-out session with Jesse! Of course I was a little frustrated. I mean, seriously. It was _Jesse_!

"Susannah," Jesse chided. "Be nice to the man. Sir, how may we help you?"

I made a face. Stupid Jesse and his stupid manners. Esmeralda and Estela saw the face and started giggling. Then they copied the look. I could feel Jesse's disapproving eyes, even though I refused to look at them. Instead, I made another face at the girls.

"You two are shifters?" the ghost wanted to know. He gave us a look that said he wasn't sure if he believed it or not.

"You can either tell us what you want, or leave," I said. "Your choice."

"I need your help."

Oddly enough, I had actually figured that part out.

I almost said that, too. But I barely managed to bite my tongue. Barely.

"What do you need our help with?" Jesse asked politely.

"I shouldn't have died."

You know, these were the ghosts that irritated me the most. The ones who felt that they'd been wronged. Which, really, was most ghosts out there. Most of the time, there wasn't any one person who had caused their deaths. A lot of times, it was just an accident.

Except, you know, for the times that the ghost had been brutally murdered.

"Okay. I understand that you feel that way," I said, trying to at least somewhat placate him. I just wanted him gone so I could back to kissing my husband. Was that really such a bad thing to want? "But we can't change that, so you're going to –"

"Oh, can't you?" he interrupted with an evil smirk.

I shared a horrified look with Jesse. We didn't make it well-known about my bringing Jesse back to life. At this point, only my family and Father Dominic and Paul knew about that, because I was _never_ going to time-travel again, if I could help it. Not after seeing how Dr. Slaski ended up.

No thanks.

"Listen, I don't know what you've heard, but we don't do that. So you –"

"Oh, I've heard a lot of things, Susannah de Silva. And you will go back and save my life. I shouldn't have died, and I want you to change that."

I shook my head. "I don't think so."

"I do."

A vase of flowers sitting on the hall table flew through the air, crashing into the wall. It shattered, scaring all four girls. Rosalinda immediately started crying. The twins hugged each other and whimpered. And Teresa stared, wide-eyed, at the ghost.

And then, he reached out and grabbed my oldest daughter's arm. "Mommy!" she cried, when he yanked her to her feet.

"You'll do as I say, or your precious little daughter gets hurt."

I was furious. In case you hadn't noticed, I could get very protective of the people I love. I almost killed – well, allowed to be killed – Michael Meducci because he tried to kill my brothers. If this guy thought that I was going to let him hurt a hair on my daughter's head, he was sorely mistaken.

"Release my daughter. Now."

"Do as I –"

I launched myself at him, thinking of the Shadowland as soon as my fingers touched his skin. Immediately, we were transported to that foggy hallway.

He was surprised, which allowed me to snatch Teresa from him.

"Where are we?" he demanded, looking around.

I held Resa close to me. "This is the Shadowland, as I call it," I told him. "Pick a door, any door. And no, I don't know where it will take you. It could be heaven, or hell. It could be another life. I don't know. I don't really care, either. Bye."

I shifted myself and Teresa back home. Jesse was watching us closely. I couldn't tell if he was mad, or if he was just glad to see us both alive. "You took him to the Shadowland?"

"Yes." I looked down at my daughter. "Resa? Does your head hurt at all, sweetie?" I asked softly.

She nodded, moving to sit in my lap. I had no idea if, since she was so young, the headaches would be more or less painful for her than they had been for me the first few times. "It huwt a lot, Mommy."

I kissed the top of her little head. "I think a little sleep will fix that. Do you want to take a short nap with Mommy?" My head was hurting, too, though I had somewhat gotten used to the pain over the years. It did get better the more often I went, which wasn't exactly a good thing since the more often I went, the more chances I'd end up like Paul's grandfather. So I tried to avoid going whenever I could.

Teresa nodded again. Her head must have really been hurting her since she didn't even complain about being too old to take a nap.

I looked at Jesse. He nodded, watching our daughter with concern in his dark eyes. "Go, _querida_. I will take care of these three. You two go rest."

**Suze: Okay, let's hang this up.**

**Jesse: Hang what up, Susannah?**

**Suze: (staring at him) Uh, your degree. Duh.**

**Jesse: I thought you and Teresa were resting.**

**Suze: Resa's still asleep, but I feel fine now. I want to hang up your degree. Should we hang it up in the living room, so everybody who comes over will see that I'm married to a doctor?**

**Jesse: Susannah, I won't be a doctor until I get my license, once I'm done with my residency. You know that.**

**Suze: (flapping a hand at him) Yeah, yeah, whatever. I say we hang it in the living room.**

**Jesse: Or we could hang it in my office, with my first degree.**

**Suze: (pouting) But, Jesse, that's no fun. Can't we put it out here, where everybody can -**

**Jesse: (chuckling) Susannah. My office, please.**

**Suze: Fine.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Jesse is thirty, and Suze is twenty-five. Teresa is now five years old. Esmeralda and Estela are three. Matthew is now two years and seven months. Nathaniel is two years and two months. Addison is one year and eleven months. And Rosalinda is one year and ten months.**

I looked over at Rosa, who was curled into Jesse's side, fast asleep. Even when in his lap, she stuck her butt up in the air while she slept. She was such a strange little girl. "Well, her color is looking a lot better. I think she's almost over whatever bug she had."

He kissed the top of her head. "I think so."

Mom came into the room just then, sitting at the table across from us. "Where are the older three girls?" I asked her. They had been with her, out in the backyard, just a minute ago. They had all wanted to see their grandma's new flower garden almost as soon as we got here.

"They're playing in the living room. Is Rosalinda feeling any better?"

"A little bit. She still won't let go of Jesse, though."

Mom smiled. "She certainly is a clingy little one."

I nodded. "I know. She's been stuck like glue on her father since she started getting sick. Hopefully Jesse won't get whatever she has. Because if he gets it, then I'll get it, and then the rest of the girls will get it."

"Esme! Stela!" Teresa screamed in anger from the other room. Maniacal laughter followed her little outburst. Those twins. They were ornery little girls. "Give it back! It's _mine_!"

"Ha, ha! You no get it!" the twins yelled back.

I sighed, shaking my head. I knew that I needed to go stop the fight, but I didn't really want to. I was tired. Rosa had been up half the night, crying because her tummy hurt. Jesse had finally taken her out to the living and fallen asleep with her on the couch, but even then, I woke up whenever she did.

Mom looked at me. "Susie, are you going to go take care of that?"

I sighed again. "Yeah, I guess so. Gina and Jake and David and Shannon better hurry up. I'm hungry. And maybe the girls will settle down once it's time to eat."

I went into the living room of my parents' house, where Resa was chasing her twin sisters around. Esmeralda and Estela were tossing one of Teresa's mermaid dolls back and forth.

"Teresa! Esmeralda! Estela! Stop right now."

They all stopped and looked at me. I placed my hands on my hips. "Estela, give the toy back to your sister." She shook her head, holding the doll behind her back. "Estela Serena de Silva, do I need to go get Daddy?" The girls hated getting into trouble with their father. He had that scary calm about him – unless he was mad at me, and then he ranted in Spanish. But he also let the girls know that they had disappointed him. Even as young as they were, they didn't like disappointing their daddy.

"No!" she said quickly. She gave the doll back to Teresa.

"Now, what do you two need to say to Resa for taking her toy?"

"We sowwy," they chimed together.

"Now, stop being mean."

There was a commotion outside, and then the front door opened. Jake, Gina, Nathaniel, and David came in. Nathaniel was squirming in Gina's arms, probably trying to get down.

"Dave, where's your fiancée?" He and Shannon had been engaged for about ten months. They were getting married in May. I couldn't believe he was twenty-one now. He wasn't the dorky little kid I used to know.

"She called and told me that she was sick. She won't be here."

I shook my head. "You and Shannon went out and broke up about ten times in high school. I don't want to see you two getting a divorce in a year."

He rolled his eyes, and he actually looked a little irritated with me. David never got irritated with me. I was his favorite sibling. "I think we'll be fine, Suze."

"Mommy!" Nate yelled, hitting his mother's shoulder with his fist. He looked a lot like Gina. He had her skin tone, her eyes, her hair. He did have Jake's nose and ears, though.

She sighed, sounding a little frustrated. "What, Nate?"

"Down."

She set him on the ground. "Fine. Go find your Uncle Jesse or something."

"Unk Jess!" the boy cried, running into the kitchen.

"I don't know if you'll want him around Jesse right now. Rosa was sick yesterday and the day before, and she clung to Jesse the entire time. He took a couple of days off because she would freak out if he left the room without her. She's just about over it, but she still won't let go of him. He's sitting with her at the dining table now."

She shrugged. "Nate will probably go bug Brad, then. As long as he's not bugging me, I don't care."

I frowned at her. She was seriously frustrated. "Gina, what's gotten you into such a bad mood?"

She scowled, watching David play with my girls. They had all three doggy-piled him. And now they were all laughing up a storm. "I feel like crap, that's what's gotten me into a bad mood. And I'm starving. What's for dinner?"

"Andy said he was making surf and terf. Why haven't you been feeling good? Maybe you got the same thing that Rosa got." I was betting that everybody else in my house was going to get sick within the next few days. It was not going to be fun.

Gina snorted, shaking her head. "If your daughter and I have the same problem, I'd be more than a little worried about her, Simon."

Jake frowned at her. "Come on, G. That wasn't funny."

"Who said I was trying to be funny, _J_," she retorted. "You're so annoying sometimes."

"Gina, seriously. What is going on with you?" I was starting to get a little worried about her. Did my best friend have cancer or something like that? Oh no. She was probably dying! What was I going to do? I couldn't lose my best friend. I just couldn't.

"Gina, you better tell her before she has a heart attack. If you don't, I will."

"Fine." She sighed heavily and looked at me. "Okay, fine. I'll tell you what's going on. I'm pregnant again. And this second pregnancy has been a little harder than the one with Nate."

Jake rolled his eyes. "A lot harder," he muttered under his breath. You know, he wasn't the guy who seemed to be sleeping while standing, not anymore. He'd really woken up since he started dating Gina steadily. The nickname Sleepy didn't work for him anymore.

Before I could say anything about this, like maybe congratulate her or something, Andy peeked his head into the room. "Did I hear you right, Gina? You say you're pregnant again? Helen, did you hear that? We're going to have another grandbaby!"

I looked at Gina. "How far along are you? Do you know the gender yet?"

"I'm ten weeks. No, we don't know the gender yet. It's too early to tell, the doctor said."

"Well, what do you want?"

She sighed. "I would say another boy, but not if he's anything like Nate. Nate is a lot to handle. So I think I'd be happy with a girl."

"I want a girl," Jake said.

"Really?" I was a little surprised. I thought he'd want a bunch of boys, like he'd grown up with.

He nodded. "Yeah. Why not? Girls can be fun."

I snorted. "Oh, Jake. Poor, naïve Jake. You won't be saying that when you have to deal with a daughter and the very first time she starts her period."

He looked mildly revolted at the idea. I just laughed. He had no idea how hormonal girls could be.

Gina gulped loudly. "I think I'm going to puke," she said, looking more than a little green. Then she raced to the bathroom.

Well, this was going to be an interesting Sunday dinner.

**Sorry, there won't be a little conversation at the end of this chapter. My creative juices didn't come up with anything for that. Things have just been crazy lately.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Jesse is thirty, and Suze is now twenty-six. Teresa is six. Esmeralda and Estela are four. Matthew is three. Nathaniel is two years and nine months. Addison is two years and six months. Rosalinda is two years and five months. And Gina and Jake's newest baby has just been born.**

I smiled at Gina, and the little baby boy that she was holding in her arms. "He looks almost exactly like his older brother'" I said. "And his name is Anthony Drew Ackerman, right? That's what you guys went with?"

Nodding, she touched her newborn son's tiny nose. I couldn't believe that she and Jake had _two_ boys, and I all I had were four girls. I just wanted one boy. Was that really so much to ask for?

Stupid de Silva line that ran strongly to girls. It was all Jesse's fault.

"I know. He's so quiet, though. He's almost like the exact opposite of Nate. Anthony's hardly made a peep since he was born. It's been pretty nice, actually. Nate screamed almost every minute for about the first three months of his life. Anthony cried when he first came out, and he's made a few whimpers here and there, but that's it. I'm loving it. I hope it stays this way."

"I bet. How's Nate handling all of this?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes, sighing. "Not well at all. He's about five times as bad as Teresa was with the twins, I swear. And I don't think he's going to get over it nearly as quickly as she did. He's been a monster lately, and I know it's just going to get worse once we take Anthony home."

"Now that I think about it, it actually didn't take Resa very long to accept her sisters, considering she had two new siblings to contend with. I mean, she was upset for about the first nine months or so. But then she realized that Jesse and I love her just as much as we love the twins. And after that, she was totally okay with it. And when we told her about Rosalinda, she hardly even cared at all."

"How's CeeCee doing? They've got Matty, who just turned three a few months ago. Do you know how he's handling the news of a new sibling? And she's due in December, right?"

I nodded. CeeCee and Adam had finally gotten married back in December. And then in April, CeeCee had gotten pregnant again, this time with a little girl. She didn't find out that she was pregnant until she was close to four months along. I was just glad that they weren't having another boy. Hey, I wanted a boy. It wasn't fair that everybody around me seemed to be having boys. And yes, it was selfish of me.

"December thirty-first is her due date. She's doing pretty well, actually. She says that this pregnancy has been really easy so far. They haven't been able to decide on a name for the baby yet, though. And Matthew's actually pretty excited to be getting a baby sister."

Gina snorted. "Lucky her. My kid already hates his brother, and he's only seen him once."

"Where is your little brat?"

I hadn't seen him since I'd arrived. I had been a little surprised to find only Gina and my mom in the hospital room. Gina had been fast asleep. Then my mom explained where everybody was, and left. My daughters had started bugging Jesse to buy them something at the little store, so he had left just as Gina had started to wake up.

So now it was just me and her.

"Oh, Nate's walking around with his father. Where's everybody else? Your mom had been in here when I fell asleep, and then Andy was supposed to be waiting outside with David and Shannon while I fed Anthony."

"Andy went with my mom to get a drink or something. I think she thought that you could use some alone time with me. Brad had to leave to go to work, but I think he left before you fell asleep, so you probably knew that already. David and Shannon were getting something from the cafeteria. They should be done soon. And Jesse took our girls to the gift shop because they kept bugging him about it. And I'm really sorry that Jesse and I didn't get here in time for the actual birth."

"Hey, don't sweat it. It happened really fast, and you had four girls to pack up and bring over."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, and all four of them were being demons this morning. It was a disaster."

"I –"

"Mommy!" Nathaniel called, racing into the room. Jake was right behind him, looking a little worn out. Okay, he looked a lot worn out. Had he been chasing his son around the hospital or something?

I wouldn't doubt it. Nate was a brat.

Jake stopped and rested his hands on his knees, catching his breath. "I'm sorry, Gina. He got away from me outside the cafeteria. Man, the little guy can run. By the way, Dave and Shannon are on their way."

I grabbed Nate as he tried to climb onto the hospital bed with his mother. He squirmed in my arms, reaching out for Gina. "Auntie Suze! Wet go! Want Mommy!"

I shook my head, making sure to keep a good hold on him. "No. Your mommy is tired, Nate, and she's holding your baby brother. You can't sit with her right now."

"Want Mommy!"

"Sorry, sport. You're going to have to wait a little while."

He gave one, really high-pitched scream, beating his fists against my arms. He was kicking his feet against my knees. Yeah, I was going to have bruises there in the morning. Lovely. Anthony woke up then and started crying, too.

"Shh, shh," Gina cooed, sticking her finger in the infant's mouth. He quieted down almost instantly and began sucking her finger.

I looked at my wiggling nephew. He really was a bratty child. I loved him, don't get me wrong. But he was a stinker, even worse than Esmeralda and Estela most days, and they were brats. "Look what you did, Nate. You scared your brother and made him cry."

"No wike him. He go bye-bye. He no have Mommy and Daddy. De aw mine."

"He can't go bye-bye. He's your brother. He's part of your family now, Nate."

He shook his head, still trying to get me to put him down. After all my years of ghost-busting, I was no weakling. That, plus the fact that I had four ornery children of my own meant that I could handle a twenty-month-old little boy, no problem. He didn't stand a chance against me. Even if he was _extremely_ determined to get away from me.

"Yes," I said. "And guess what, Nate? Now that you're a big boy, you get to teach all the cool stuff you know to your baby brother. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

"No." He threw his entire body back, trying to ram his head into my chin. I just leaned back a little bit. All of my girls had tried that same thing at some point – usually at multiple points.

"I think it will be, Nate. You'll have so much fun teaching Anthony all the stuff you know."

He turned around, stuck his tongue out, and spat in my face.

Jake sighed. "Let me take him, Suze."

Well, I had tried.

Jake held out his hands. I passed Nathaniel to him. "Come on, little guy. Let's go out in the hall."

Nathaniel was still struggling as Jake took him out into the hallway. About the same time, Dave and Shannon came in. David was grinning slightly. "Poor Jake. I think Nate might have just kicked him in a very painful spot, because he's walking funny."

I was a little curious about this, I will admit. Nate did have some strong legs. If he got Jake in a tender spot, it had to have hurt like crazy. I looked out into the hall and, sure enough, Jake was walking a little funny.

Ouch.

Poor Jake.

**Suze: Okay, let's go see Aunt Gina n-**

**Esmeralda: Daddy! **

**Estela: Stowe! **

**Teresa: Daddy, will you buy us something?**

**Rosalinda: Pwease?**

**Jesse: Not right now, girls. You don't need -**

**Teresa, Esmeralda, Estela, & Rosalinda: Daddy!**

**Suze: (laughing) Oh, they know how to do the Bambi eyes! All four of them! You're a goner, Jesse.**

**Jesse: (struggling not to cave) Girls, I really think -**

**Teresa, Esmeralda, Estela, & Rosalinda: Dad-dy!**

**Jesse: (sighing) All right.**

**Suze: Told ya.**


	18. Chapter 18

**Jesse is thirty-one now. Suze is twenty-six. Teresa is six. Esmeralda and Estela are five. Matthew is three. Nathaniel is three. Addison is three. Rosalinda is also three. Anthony is eight months, and CeeCee and Adam's second baby, Aubrey, is five months.**

The sun streaming through the window woke me up. That was odd. Jesse would usually make sure the curtains were closed when he got up – at, like, four in the morning and while it was still dark outside, the weirdo – so that I could sleep in. He knew how much I worshiped my sleep. We kept the curtains open at night because we both, like the dorks that we are, liked to look at the stars before bed. And this house didn't have a little roof spot where we could sit so we had to just look through the window.

So either I'd woken up extremely early for some reason, or Jesse was still asleep and hadn't closed the curtains.

I stretched, reaching my hands out to search Jesse's side of the bed. I opened my eyes just a fraction. Nope, no Jesse. Where was he – Oh! It was June 14th.

It was our wedding anniversary.

Eight years. Jesse and I had been married for eight years, and we'd known each other for about ten. The time had just flown by, seriously. I was so glad that I'd found him, though. Jesse was perfect for me. I loved him more than I had every loved anything. It was amazing, really. And our marriage had been great. Sure, we'd had our fair share of fights, but we always made up. And we never went to bed angry with each other. Okay, we tried not to go to bed angry with each other. We'd slipped up a few times.

"Good morning, _querida_."

I opened my eyes all the way, and looked around. Jesse was standing in the doorway of our bedroom, holding a tray of food. I felt myself smile. Hey, he looked great in his grey t-shirt and blue striped pajama pants. That t-shirt was pretty snug on him. Not like in a this-is-way-too-small way, but more like in a this-shirt-molds-to-my-body kind of way. Totally sexy, let me just say.

"You left the curtains open."

"I wanted you awake, and I didn't want to have to do it. You get grouchy when I wake you up."

Well, that was true. I wasn't a morning person. "Breakfast in bed?"

He nodded, proving that he is pretty much the best husband ever, and brought the tray to me. "Happy anniversary, Susannah."

I sat up. Jesse had made food for two. And normally, I would be upset about waking up at eight during the summer. I mean, eight was just way too early to get up in the summer. It was an unnatural hour. But that meant that the girls would still be asleep, which meant that we could enjoy a nice meal together. Alone.

"Thank you, Jesse," I said. "This looks and smells delicious."

"You are very welcome, Susannah."

We ate in a comfortable silence. It wasn't very often that we got any alone time together anymore, so we both savored it when we did. We were always happy to have these small moments of peace.

Once the food was gone, I put the tray aside, a different kind of hunger filling me.

I scooted closer to him, reaching for him. He wrapped his arms around me, kissing my lips lightly. I slipped my hands under the cotton t-shirt he wore to bed, trailing my fingers over the light dusting of hair on his chest.

"You know," I began, "we have a little while before the girls all wake up. We could…have a little fun."

His only response was to deepen the kiss and pull us down. He pulled me close, so nearly every inch of the fronts of our bodies were touching. Hey, I wasn't complaining. He didn't have to say anything to make me happy. "Jesse," I murmured against his lips. "I love you."

"_Te amo, querida_."

I giggled. Yeah, yeah, shut up. Giggling wasn't a sin. "Say something else in Spanish." Yeah, I know. Again, shut up. I know that I used to get so mad when he spoke to me in Spanish. But it didn't irritate me anymore. In fact, I kind of loved it now.

He started talking to me in Spanish. And even though I couldn't understand a single word of it, I was pretty sure it was dirty. At any rate, there was no way he'd say this stuff in front of the girls, even though they weren't totally fluent in Spanish, yet. This was a side of Jesse that I very, very, _very_ rarely got to see.

And I loved it.

"Mommy! Daddy!" four little voices called. Jesse and I pulled apart quickly. And just in time, too. Teresa, Esmeralda, Estela, and Rosalinda jumped onto the bed with us.

Jesse and I were both breathing heavily. "Hi, girls," I huffed. "What are you all doing up?"

Teresa shrugged. "We wanted to. Mommy, will you play a game with us?"

They wanted to play a game now? Really? "No, sweetie, not right –"

"Knock, knock," my mom's voice said, as the front door opened.

"Grandma!" Teresa and the twins hollered.

Rosalinda added, "Gamma!"

And then they all raced away.

I groaned. "We're never going to get a minute alone."

Mom came into the room, one twin on each hip. Andy was right behind her, holding Resa and Rosa on his feet. "Susie, we thought we'd take the girls to the zoo so you and Jesse could celebrate your anniversary."

I sat up straight. Did I hear her right? She was going to take the girls, so Jesse and I would be home alone?

"Yes!" I said, with a little more enthusiasm than I should have, I guess. My parents were staring at me. But come on. How could I not be excited about this? "I mean, that'd be great, Mom. Let me get them ready."

I was glad that I hadn't worn anything revealing to bed. Just a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt. I didn't care so much about my mom seeing me in anything else, but Andy? No way.

About ten minutes later, Mom, Andy, and the girls were out the door. I returned to my room and smiled seductively at Jesse. Well, I hoped it was a seductive smile.

"Now, where were we?" I asked, climbing onto the bed.

He grinned and pulled me into his arms. "I think we were right…here…" he whispered, kissing my neck. He trailed his kisses up my neck, making his way up to my ear. Which he nibbled.

"Where's that Spanish, mister?"

He chuckled once, then started rambling again. I tugged his shirt upward. He got the hint, lifting his arms so I could take it all the way off. That was thrown to the ground. I scooted forward until I was practically sitting in his lap. Our kisses became more and more fevered. And then…

The phone rang.

I'm not even kidding.

"Who in the world could possibly be calling at freaking eight-thirty in the morning?" I demanded, glaring at the ringing thing. Instead of answering it, though, I unplugged it.

And Jesse didn't even scold me. Huh, I guess he wanted the same thing I did. And his next action just gave proof to that. He actually initiated the next round of heavy kissing. And then, shocker of all shockers, he took my shirt off. We were both reaching for the elastic bands of the others' shorts when we heard someone clear their throat.

"Ahem. Am I interrupting something?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

What now? Rolling my eyes, I looked back. Oh, great.

It was a ghost.

Jesse and I both groaned, and I fell back against the pillows. Yeah, my husband definitely wanted the same thing I did. And these interruptions were starting to seriously tick me off. "Next year," I said to Jesse, "we're going out of town for our anniversary."

**Suze: Where do you want to go for our anniversary next year?**

**Jesse: You want to discuss this now? We have almost a year. Our anniversary was last week.**

**Suze: So? I want to plan it now.**

**Jesse: No. Let's wait, Susannah.**

**Suze: Jesse, please.**

**Jesse: Susannah, I do not want to discuss this now. I have to get ready for work.**

**Suze: Fine, I'll plan it by myself.**

**Jesse: (freezing) No. You'll want to spend a ridiculous amount of money. I have a compromise. We'll discuss when I get back from work.**

**Suze: (smiling) Okay.**


	19. Chapter 19

**Jesse is thirty-two, and Suze is now twenty-seven. Teresa is seven. Esmeralda and Estela are six. Matthew is four. Nathaniel is four. Addison is four. Rosalinda is four. Anthony is one year and nine months. Aubrey is one year and six months.**

I smiled into the phone, playing with the edge of the bedcover. I loved to hear my children say that they loved me. It made me feel good. "I love you, too, Rosa. Make sure that you be really good for Grandma and Grandpa, okay?"

"Okay, Mommy," she promised. She was my best behaved daughter. I didn't really have to worry about her disobeying my mom and Andy while she and her sisters stayed with them.

"Give the phone to Stela, please."

I waited while the phone got passed. I could hear my mom in the background, talking to Esmeralda about something. Hopefully she hadn't already gotten herself into trouble. Jesse and I hadn't been gone for even a full day yet. "Hi, Mommy," Estela greeted cheerfully.

"Stel, I want you to be good," I told her sternly. She and Esmeralda had the hardest time with that simple command. They were very ornery. They seemed to think that being good meant doing whatever made you wanted to do. "You need to be nice to your sisters, okay? All of them."

"Okay."

"I'm serious. Don't be mean. I love you."

"I love you, too, Mommy."

"Okay, let me talk to Esme."

Once again, the phone was passed. "Mommy, hi," Esme said.

"Hi, sweetie. I told Stela and Rosa this, but I want you to hear it, too. Be good. Do not be mean to your sisters, and do what Grandma and Grandpa tell you to do."

She sighed. I knew that she wasn't happy about the rules, but then again, the twins have never been happy about rules. They saw them more as suggestions than rules. "Okay."

"I love you."

"Love you, too."

"Will you get Teresa for me, please?"

"Mommy!" Teresa said, the instant she got the phone, "when will you and Daddy be home? Where are you?"

"Daddy and I will be home in two weeks, Resa." We had tried to go on vacation on our actual anniversary this year, but that hadn't worked out with Jesse's schedule at work. So we'd had to wait about a month. But hey, a late vacation was better than no vacation at all. I wasn't complaining. Two weeks all alone with Jesse? Heck yeah. "We're in Florida."

"But why?"

I sighed. I know I had explained this to all of the girls. Teresa probably hadn't been listening. "Well, we've been married for nine years, so we're celebrating."

"Oh. I miss you."

I smiled. I did miss her. I missed all four of them. But as much as I missed all of my girls, I needed the break. "I miss you, too, baby girl. I love you. Be good for Grandma and Grandpa. Show your little sisters what a good girl you are. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes. I love you, too."

"Okay, bye. Have fun."

We hung up. Sighing, I slipped my cell phone back into my pocket.

"The girls will be just fine," Jesse assured me, standing in the bathroom doorway. I had no idea how long he'd been standing there. I had been under the impression that he was going to get in the shower, not spy on me. Which was why I had made the call to the girls. I didn't want him to know that I was worried. I didn't want him to think that I didn't want to be here. "You don't need to worry about them, _querida_."

"I know. I'm not really worried. It's just…" I wasn't quite sure how to explain what I was feeling.

"You don't like how quickly they're growing up."

I sighed. He had hit the nail right on the head, I realized. I didn't want them to grow up. "In a couple of months, the twins will be starting kindergarten. And Teresa will be in second grade. The time has just gone by so fast, Jesse. My babies aren't babies anymore."

He sat beside me on our hotel bed and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed my forehead. "Susannah, no matter how old they get, they will always be your babies. Nothing can change that. And they will always need you."

I hadn't even said that I was worried about them not needing me anymore. But Jesse knew. He always knew what I was feeling. Well, almost always. "No, they won't," I argued. "They're going to get older, and then they won't want anything to do with –"

"You still need your mother, no?" he interrupted softly.

"Well, yeah. But –"

"Then why do you think it will be any different for our daughters?"

I sighed, again. He was right, as usual. "Yeah, okay. Why do you always have to be right?"

He just smiled and kissed me.

"You know," I said against his mouth, "I've been thinking lately."

"What about?" he asked, pushing me back onto the bed. His fingers were doing very distracting things to my stomach. They were making me have a hard time thinking straight.

"Um…Well, Gina told me last week that she's pregnant again. She said she was, uh, seventeen weeks along. A little…girl…" Now he was nipping at my earlobe. I couldn't believe how distracting this was.

"Yes, I knew that. You told me that same day. They're thinking about naming her Jasmine, Jake said. Why did you mention it?"

I tried to answer, I really did. But his fingers had started to make their way toward my bra. Every coherent thought fled my brain at that moment. "Susannah? Is there a reason you brought it up?" he asked innocently.

Jesse was evil. I never thought I would say that about him, but he was. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. And he was enjoying every second of it. "I…I miss having a baby," I confessed, breathless. My heart was racing. He unsnapped my bra, making it even harder for me to think clearly. "I think…I want to try to get pregnant again."

"Do you?"

I nodded. "Yes. I want one more. But if you get me pregnant with twins again, I swear I will kill you."

I felt him smile. "That's all right."

"Huh?"

"It's all right if you kill me. I'll just haunt you and the girls forever. Not even death can separate us, Susannah."

I tried to be mad at him, I really did. But I couldn't. If he died, we could still be a family. All of the girls were at least mediators, if not shifters. It was nice to know that death couldn't stop us. We really could be together forever.

**Again, sorry that this chapter doesn't have a small conversation at the end. And I'm sorry it's a little short. **


	20. Chapter 20

**Jesse is thirty-two, and Suze is now twenty-eight. Teresa is eight. Esmeralda and Estela are six. Matthew is five. Nathaniel is four. Addison is four. Rosalinda is four. Anthony is two years and two months. Aubrey is one year and eleven months. And Jake and Gina's third baby is just being born.**

I waited outside the Junipero Serra Catholic Academy, waiting for my three oldest girls. If he hadn't retired a few years ago, I would have gone inside and visited with Father Dominic. But he had, so I couldn't. He always loved when I stopped by his little apartment with the girls, though I didn't get to do that as often as I would have liked. The last time I'd been there, Paul and Selma has also been there, with little Addison. It had been in August, just a few weeks after he and Selma had finally tied the knot.

"Mommy?" Rosalinda said.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"When wiw Baby get hewe?"

I smiled, my hand straying to my belly. It had been more than just me and Jesse who returned from our anniversary trip, if you catch my meaning. I found out about the pregnancy only a little more than a month later. "In four months, baby girl. Are you excited? You're going to be a big sister."

She shrugged, opening her princess coloring book. "I guess. Is it a boy, Mommy? I want a bwotuh."

"We don't know. It's going to be a surprise."

"What it name?"

"Well, if it's a girl, her name is going to be Cristina Raquel. And if it's a boy, we'll name him Carlos Luciano."

"I want Cawos."

I chuckled, but didn't get a chance to say anything because Teresa, Esmeralda, and Estela approached the SUV. Teresa opened the door.

They were bickering as they got in, as usual. Teresa didn't get along well with the twins. Probably because the twins were little stinkers and liked to pull pranks all the time. "Girls, stop it. Get buckled up. Are you ready for Christmas break?"

They cheered, even though they actually loved school. For now, anyway. But they loved Christmas even more since that meant presents. "Mommy," Esme began, "there are, um, four days till Christmas!"

"Good job. And how do you know that?"

Stela held up a chain of paper links. "We made these, um…" she trailed off, trying to find the right word.

"Paper thingies," Esme said.

"Yeah. And we put numbers on them."

Esme nodded. "Uh-huh. And every day, we rip one off! Like this!" She tore one of the rings. Then she made a weird face. "Oopsies. Mommy! Do you have tape?"

I shook my head. "Not in the car, Esme. You'll have to wait until we get home."

"But Mommy! It's broken! I have to fix it!"

"Well, there's nothing I can do until we get home. I don't have tape in the car, sweetie."

She folded her arms and slumped down in her seat. "Esmeralda, stop pouting. You can get some tape when we get to the house."

She ignored me.

Rosalinda started singing a Christmas song, and kept mixing up the words. Resa rolled her eyes. "Rosa, that's not how it goes. You're doing it wrong."

"I not!"

"Yeah, you are."

"Teresa, leave you sister alone. Let her sing it how she wants. It's not a big deal."

The girls were quiet then, except Rosa. She didn't stop singing, but she did lower her voice a bit.

We got back to the house, I parked in the carport, and the girls all tried to beat me inside. It didn't work, since I had the key to unlock the front door. As soon as it was open, Esme ran into Jesse's office to find some tape, Stela following her.

My cell phone rang. I quickly pulled it out of my purse and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hey, Suze," Jake said. "I need you to come into the hospital. Gina went into labor."

"When?" I asked excitedly. Gina's due date had been a few days before. It was about time for that baby to come.

"About an hour ago, a little less. Mom, Dad, Brad, David, Shannon, and Jesse are already here."

I frowned. "Wait, Jesse? Oh, duh. He's working today. Okay, we'll be there as soon as I can gather the girls up."

We hung up. "Girls!" I called. "I need you to get back in the car. Aunt Gina's having her baby!"

"Mommy!" Esme objected, as Resa and Rosa did what I told them. "I haven't fixed my Christmas chain yet!"

"Then you can fix it in the car. We have to go."

The twins came running out of the office, with more than just tape in their hands. Tape, paper clips, scissors, and Post-it notes. I snatched the scissors because the last time these two had gotten a hold of scissors outside school, they had played barber shop with their younger sister.

I didn't have time to deal with the rest of the stuff. "Out to the car, now," I commanded.

Everybody got buckled up, and then we were heading to the hospital. I could hear giggles coming from the twins, but I refused to look. I didn't want to know.

At the hospital, I asked for Gina Ackerman's room. The nurse stared at my twins, who were covered in tape and Post-it notes, with paper clip necklaces, but told me the room number. I hurried in that direction, lifting Rosa into my arms.

Andy, Brad, David, Shannon, and Jesse waiting outside the room.

Jesse raised his eyebrow – the one with the scar in it – when he saw our twin daughters. Everyone else giggled or laughed. "Estela, Esmeralda, why are you covered in office supplies?" my husband asked.

They snickered. "We wanted to, Daddy."

"Mmm-hmm. And where did you get these supplies?"

They exchanged a look. "Um…" Stela began.

"We found them," Esme finished.

I shook my head at Jesse. "Your office," I mouthed to him.

"You found them, you say. And where did you find them?"

"Somewhere," the twins replied together.

"My office?"

They just giggled again.

Jesse shook his head and kissed my lips. "Are you on break?" I asked.

He nodded and said, "I was told that I could be on break as long as it took for Gina to have the baby."

"Wow, this hospital really loves you."

He just shrugged.

I looked at Shannon, who was leaning her head against Dave's shoulder. She had just found out the week before that she was pregnant, about nine weeks along. "How are you feeling?" I asked.

She shrugged. "All right, I suppose. I'm not enjoying the morning sickness."

"It's no fun, I know." I sighed. I needed to go see my best friend, to see how she was doing. "Well, I'm going to go in there." And I was about to do just that when the door opened and Mom came out. She was smiling.

"Jasmine Cynthia Ackerman."

David and Brad both looked a little startled. "They gave her Mom's name?" Dave asked.

My mom nodded. "They felt it was right for her. She's adorable. She looks a lot like Jake, but with Gina's eyes. You guys can all go in and see her now."

Rosalinda tugged on my ear lightly to get my attention. "Mommy, I get howd hew?"

I chuckled, kissing her little nose. "Sorry, sweetie. Jasmine's too little for anybody but the adults to hold her."

"Can I hold her?" Resa questioned.

"No, sweetie."

"But, Mommy," Teresa argued, "I'm a big girl. You said I was big enough to hold my new brother or sister. Why can't I hold cousin Jasmine?"

"You'll have to talk to Aunt Gina and Uncle Jake about that. And I told you that you could hold your new brother or sister only with Daddy or Mommy's help."

She sighed, but didn't argue anymore. Everybody went in to see the newest addition of the Ackerman family.

**David: Suze, you'll never guess.**

**Suze: What? Did you and Shannon find out the gender yet? She's at twenty weeks now.**

**David: We did. Guess what we're having?**

**Suze: I already told you that I thought it was a boy. Everybody has a boy first, except me.**

**David: Paul didn't.**

**Suze: Yeah, well, Paul doesn't count. You're having a boy, aren't you?**

**David: Nope. We're going to have a little girl. We're trying to decide between Chloe, Abigail, Rachel, and Mackenzie.**

**Suze: Finally! Someone else has a girl first!**


	21. Chapter 21

**I realized earlier that I never mentioned Spike after like, one of the first chapters. In case you're wondering, he's died since then. **

**Jesse is thirty-three, and Suze is now twenty-eight. Teresa is eight. Esmeralda and Estela are six. Matthew is five. Nathaniel is five. Addison is five. Rosalinda is four. Anthony is two years and six months. Aubrey is two years and three months. Jasmine is four months.**

I closed my eyes, breathing as evenly and deeply as I could. I knew I was close, but I didn't want to go to the hospital without Jesse. He had been there for the birth of each of our first four children. He was _not_ going to miss the birth of this one. Besides the fact that I was pretty sure it would be a bad idea for me to drive myself to the hospital at that point.

But my contractions were starting to get pretty bad, and Jesse was taking his U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and I didn't know when he'd be done. This baby wasn't going to wait much longer, that was for sure.

"Mommy?" Teresa asked me. I opened my eyes to find her standing in front of the couch, where I was trying not to freak out. She was watching me with worry in her dark brown eyes. "Are you okay? Are you hurting?"

I smiled at her, trying to ignore the pain. "Your baby brother or sister is hurting me a little bit. But that means that he or she is just about ready to be born."

"Today?" Now that she was a little older, she liked the idea of having another sibling. Once she'd gotten over her dislike of the twins, she found that she loved playing with her younger siblings. When they weren't teasing her half to death.

"Maybe. Really, really soon."

She sat beside me and laced the fingers of her right hand through my left. "Is Daddy going to miss it?"

"I sure hope not, sweetie." At this point, though, I was starting to get worried that he might. What was I going to do if he _didn't_ get home in time? "Resa, can you do me a favor? Will you go into the kitchen, and make me a peanut butter sandwich?"

"Is that what the baby wants?" she asked.

I tried not to roll my eyes. Okay, so I blamed my cravings on the baby a lot, saying that whatever weird concoction I was eating was what the baby wanted. I guess Resa had noticed. "Yeah, it's what the baby wants."

"Okay!" And she ran off into the kitchen.

I confess. I didn't really want a peanut butter sandwich, and neither did the baby. I just didn't want her to be in here while I tensed through more contractions.

And then it happened.

My water broke.

"No, no, no, no," I muttered. This couldn't happen yet. I wasn't ready for this. Jesse wasn't home. I couldn't go into labor yet. I just couldn't. Maybe the labor would take forever, and I would have plenty of time before he got here. And then he could take me to the hospital, and everything would be good.

"Teresa, please go upstairs and play with your sisters."

"What about –"

"I'm not hungry anymore, baby girl."

She hurried up the stairs. I clenched my fists as another contraction hit. Oh, where was Jesse? I couldn't hold off much longer. This baby was ready to come, whether I liked it or not. And it was not going to be a long labor, which I actually _wanted_ for once. I had been told that, generally, the time labor takes shortens with each child a woman has. This was my fifth baby, fourth labor, and it was going by pretty damn quickly.

Which was so not a good thing right now!

"Mommy?" the twins called, peeking through the railing.

"Not right now, girls. Go back into your room, please," I said, through clenched teeth.

The house was quiet then. The girls must have been a little worried about me, because there wasn't any bickering. That was one less thing I had to worry about, which was nice. My contractions were getting closer, and I knew I couldn't wait any longer. I had to call Jesse, or my mom, or anybody. I just had to call –

Oh, crap.

The house phone was in the twins' room. I know, weird place for it, right? But I'd been helping them pick up while talking to my mom, and then I'd forgotten to put the phone back on its charger station. And my cell phone was in my purse, which was in my bedroom.

Upstairs.

So I would either have to get one of the girls to get it for me, or I would have to try walking up the stairs myself.

I took a deep breath and started trying to get off of the couch. I didn't want the girls to get even more freaked out than they already were. It took me a good ten minutes, but I did it.

Ha, success.

Now, the stairs.

I made it about halfway up before the pain was just too much. I sat down on the step, breathing heavily. I guess I was going to have that baby right there on the stairs, because I couldn't move and I couldn't get to a phone.

Great.

"Mommy?" Teresa asked, peeking her head out of the room she shared with Rosa.

I couldn't answer. I hurt too bad. It was taking everything I had not to scream. But I didn't want to scare the girls to death.

"Susannah!" a very welcome voice called out, coming through the front door. "I passed. I am now –"

"Jesse!" I shrieked.

"Daddy, I think Mommy's going to have the baby."

Jesse bolted toward me. "Susannah –"

I was panting, already feeling the urge to push. I couldn't just yet, though. "My water…broke…forty minutes…ago…"

"Why didn't you call?"

I waved upward. "Phones…up…"

He was looking a little panicked, and Jesse doesn't panic easily. "We need to get you to the hospital –"

I shook my head. Hey, I'd been through it three times already. Three labors, four children. I think I knew when we had time to get to the hospital and when we didn't. Right now, we didn't. "Coming…now…"

"Oh." I was glad that he was an ER doctor, and had been trained, if briefly, about emergency births. He knew what he was doing. Or he at least knew enough of the basics to get us through this. "In that case, I'll take you to the bedroom. Teresa, I need you to get as many towels as you can, and put them on Mommy and Daddy's bed."

She nodded and ran off. "Come on, _querida_. Let's go have this baby."

"Call…Mom…"

"I will. Let me get you settled first." He lifted me into his arms, muttering about getting something to clamp the cord, and clean the baby's nose and throat.

He held me as he instructed Resa on how and where to lay the towels. She was such a good girl. I knew that she was a little scared, but she was doing as she was told, and doing a good job of it. Then he told her to get more towels, as he laid me on the bed.

After that, I wasn't paying much attention. I heard him talking to my mom as he helped me out of my shorts. I heard him say I was dilated to a nine, which didn't really surprise me. I heard him ripping something, and looking around our bathroom for stuff, I had no idea what.

I remembered, at Rosa's birth, how I thought that it actually got easier with each birth.

Had I been _insane_?

Tears were coursing down my cheeks, and that was when I started laughing. Teresa had been sent into the hall, and told to stay there until my mom arrived. So it was just me and Jesse and the baby.

"Susannah, I need you to push with this next contraction."

I did, screaming and laughing at the same time.

"Again."

So I did.

"Never…again…" I panted.

"Push again, _querida_. You're almost there."

Whoa, that was fast. This had been the shortest labor I'd ever had to suffer through. But hey, now that Jesse was here, that worked for me. The sooner it was over, the happier I'd be. It was also the most painful labor I'd ever suffered through. I pushed, then flopped back.

"I'm…done…No…more…kids…"

"Push."

Groaning, I did. And then, a scream that didn't belong to me filled the room. It was a newborn baby's scream. "Carlos," I heard Jesse say, his voice a little watery. "Susannah, _querida_, we have a Carlos."

A boy. Finally.

**Suze: (smiling down at Carlos) Hey, Gina? You'll never guess what just happened.**

**Gina: What, Suze? Did you have another run-in with a ghost?**

**Suze: No. I just had a baby. About ten minutes ago.**

**Gina: (shocked) What? Why didn't you call me? You always called me when you went into labor with all the girls.**

**Suze: Well, I couldn't get to the phone in time. Jesse was out taking his test, and I was sitting on the couch when my water broke. My cell and the house phone were both upstairs. And like I was going to have one of the girls get them for me. They would have been traumatized.**

**Gina: So you had the baby at home?**

**Suze: Yep. Delivered by his own father.**

**Gina: His? You got a boy? Well, it's about time.**

**Suze: (laughing) I know.**


	22. Chapter 22

**Jesse is thirty-four, and Suze is now twenty-nine. Teresa is nine. Esmeralda and Estela are seven. Matthew is six. Nathaniel is six. Addison is six. Rosalinda is five. Anthony is three. Aubrey is three. Jasmine is one year and three months. Carlos is one year. And Abigail (David and Shannon's daughter) is eight months.**

I snapped the buttons on the bottom of Carlos' blue dinosaur bodysuit. Even though I'd been peed on more than a few times, I loved having a baby boy. I loved my girls, don't get me wrong, but I was glad that I was finally graced with a boy. I smiled at my son. "Hi, Car," I cooed to him. He smiled a little in response. He was such a cutie. He was like a miniature me. "I can't believe you're an entire year old today. You're my big boy, aren't you?"

"He is a strong boy."

I looked up and smiled at Jesse. He was looking proudly at Carlos. He had always wanted a son. And now he had one. I couldn't even begin to tell you how happy this made him. "What are the girls doing?" I asked him.

He smiled. "All four of them are pouting because they aren't being allowed to have any cake until their brother's diaper has been changed. David and Shannon just arrived, by the way."

My eyes lit up. "They brought Abigail, didn't they?" That little girl was absolutely adorable. Jazz was cute, don't get me wrong, but Abby was just about the cutest little girl I had ever seen. Besides my own daughters, of course.

"Of course, Susannah. She is their daughter, after all."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Shut up." I picked up Carlos, smiling at him. He gave me a toothy grin in return.

Jesse and I took him back into the kitchen, where his first birthday party had been taking place. Before he'd practically had a blowout in his diaper, anyway. It was nasty, let me tell you.

"Mom," Teresa wanted to know, "can we have cake _now_?"

"Yes. You can all have cake now."

They cheered.

I buckled Carlos into his high chair. He immediately smacked the tray, yelling, "Mommy! Mommy!"

"That's me, bud. Do you want some cake?"

Jesse smiled and put a small square of cake in front of Carlos. Our son slammed his fist into it, giggling like crazy. I shook my head, but I couldn't keep the grin off my face. "At least he's not as bad as the twins were."

I started dishing cake slices to everyone else. Gina smirked at me, getting Jasmine settled into a second high chair. "So, now that you've got your boy, are you done?" She gave her daughter a small piece of cake and let her at it. Which I didn't think was exactly the smartest idea since I was sure it would start a little food fight between Jazz and Car. I don't know if you know this, but kids? Yeah, they like to throw food.

"Oh, yeah. We are _done_. Jesse is getting a vasectomy next week. I think five is enough for me. I can't handle anymore than that. I'm just glad that I finally got a boy."

"Carlos is a little momma's boy, isn't he?"

She had no idea. "He is. And he looks almost exactly like me."

"He sure does. He's a cute little guy, that's for sure. He –"

There was a squeal of laughter, and then Anthony ran into his mother's legs. He clung to her, giggling. "Mommy. Daddy monstuh. He gonna eats me!"

Jake, grinning like a fool and crouched slightly, snuck closer to his youngest son. It still amazed me how big of saps we all turned into with kids, me included. "Tony, I'm going to get you. Hiding behind Mommy isn't going to save you."

"Mommy! Hewp!"

"Me? Oh, I suppose I can help." She scooped him into her arms, causing him to shriek in laughter, and pretended to nibble on his stomach. Jake did the same thing with his fingers. "I can help Daddy eat you! But, you don't taste so good, Tony. I think you need some salt."

"No! No sawt! No eat me! Bad Mommy! You vewy bad."

I had to laugh. "Oh, that was a good one. You just got told, Gina. By your son."

"Auntie Suze! Hewp!" Tony cried, reaching out to me. He was giggling hysterically, though, which told me that he was enjoying the attention of his parents, however weird they were being about it.

I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. "Sorry, sport. I'm outnumbered."

I left them to their silly game and made my way to David and Shannon, who were curled up together on the couch. Abigail was asleep in her little carrier. And actually, her parents looked like they were asleep, too.

"Is this party really _that_ boring?" I asked quietly, right in their ears.

They both awoke with a small start. Dave ran his fingers through his red hair, which Abby had inherited from him. We called her Little Red.

"Sorry, Suze. The party's not boring. It's just that we had a rough week. Abby's first tooth is starting to cut through."

I winced, patting his shoulder in sympathy. "Yeah, I know how that goes. Carlos has a couple that have already broken through. Not a fun time."

"No," he agreed.

I smiled at him. "You'll be fine, though. You're a smart guy. Other than that, how have things been?"

"Pretty good. Abby is such a happy baby most of the time. And she's very curious."

"So…basically, she gets into everything?" I guessed.

He nodded, a small grin pulling at his lips. "Yeah. She does." I knew this didn't really bug him, though. He would love it if his daughter ended up with his curiosity. I'm sure he'd love to have a little mini genius running around.

"Well, good luck. And you should bring her over sometime next month. Maybe she and Carlos can have a little play date or something. Hey, have either of you seen Brad yet? I thought he was going to be here, and I have to congratulate him. I heard that he and Elizabeth have been together for _six_ _entire_ months now. After high school, and Debbie Mancuso, that's a record." Well, that wasn't quite true. He might have been with Debbie, but it was an on-again-off-again relationship with the two of them. I don't know if that really counts. Then again, it was the same thing with David and Shannon.

"Oi! I was _not_ dating Debbie Mancuso!" I heard Brad holler from the kitchen.

I smirked. "Never mind. I seem to have found him." Now I could go torment him.

**Brad: I can fall in love, too, Suze.**

**Suze: (eyes wide) You're in love? Has the world come to an end?**

**Jesse: (rolling eyes) Susannah, he is human. It was bound to happen eventually.**

**Suze: Yeah, but…it's just **_**weird**_**. I mean, Brad? In love? And who would love him back?**

**Brad: (offended) I'm not a horrible person, Suze. Why wouldn't Liz love me back? Don't be a jerk.**

**Andy: Hey. No name-calling.**

**(Suze smirks and Brad groans in frustration)**

**Brad: That wasn't even that bad!**


	23. Chapter 23

**Jesse is thirty-five, and Suze is now thirty. Teresa is ten. Esmeralda and Estela are nine. Matthew is eight. Nathaniel is seven. Addison is seven. Rosalinda is seven. Anthony is four. Aubrey is four. Jasmine is two years and seven months. Carlos is two years and three months. And Abigail is two.**

I sat down across from Andy, sipping my soda. I was sure that Jesse could handle the kids for just a little longer. I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to my stepfather in a while.

"So, any paranormal disturbances lately?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Not really. Well, I did kind of stop some guy from being murdered, with the help of the ghost of his friend, who _had_ been murdered by the guy who was planning to murder him. Oh, and with Jesse's help."

Okay, so Jesse had done most of the work. I kept screwing things up, like he says I usually do, except he doesn't use the word "screwed" like I do. There had been a small misunderstanding, that almost got me involved with some nasty gang politics. Luckily, Jesse had figured out what was really going on before I could get myself mixed up in that stuff. But Andy didn't need to know that.

"Jeez, Suze. You worry me sometimes."

He didn't even know the half of it. I usually played it down quite a bit for my family. I smiled cheerfully at him. "Oh, don't worry. We mediators are _very_ hard to kill. I mean, I've been thrown off a second-story roof and into a hole in the ground and all I got was a small concussion."

He stared at me, his mouth open. I sighed. Why were they still shocked by this stuff? They'd seen the injuries. They had to know that I wasn't _that_ clumsy.

Please.

As if.

"Really, Andy. I'm a tough girl. And shifters seem to be even more resilient."

"Are all of your kids mediators? Or shifters?"

"They're all at least mediators, which means that we can make ghost-busting into a family activity. Carlos actually was playing with the ghost of a little girl at the park last week. People totally don't think anything of it when a two-year-old talks to thin air. Anyway, we're not really sure if any of the kids are shifters. We think Carlos might be, but we don't exactly want to test it out."

"Why?"

"Well, because trips to the past or the Shadowland can fry your brain cells. That's why Jesse always gets mad when I go. If you go too often, you'll end up basically a vegetable, like Paul's grandfather, Dr. Slaski. Jesse and I avoid shifting _anywhere_ as much as possible."

"Understandable. Oh, hey. Your mom told me that you and Jesse were looking into maybe buying a new home?"

I nodded. "Well, Jesse's bring in some good money from the hospital, so we can totally afford it. And our house is just too cramped. The twins and Teresa are sharing a room, and have been since Carlos was born. And we've got Rosa and Carlos together now. We just need more space."

"Well, I actually know of a couple of places that might do it. They'd need some work, of course, but I'm sure I could work something out. The houses are kind of old."

I sighed. "That's all right. Jesse and I can handle any ghosts that might be hanging around. I think I'd like to see them. Maybe you can get together with Jesse to find a good time. My schedule's pretty open. I just stay home with the kids all day."

"Sounds like a plan."

I stood, finishing the last of my soda. "Well, I'll have Jesse give you a call. See you later, Andy."

"Bye, kiddo."

I waved and left.

It only took me about ten minutes to get home. I parked the car, got out, went through the front door and living room…

And froze.

I covered my mouth so they wouldn't hear my laughter as it bubbled up my throat.

The girls had brought out a small, pink table and set up a tea party in the kitchen. Probably with some kind of juice, since we didn't have tea in our house. They were each wearing a princess-type dress, and had a bunch of jewelry and make-up on.

That's not what had me laughing, though. Carlos sat in one of the little chairs, a pile of necklaces in front of him. He was putting them on and taking them off. Sitting beside him was Jesse, and that's why I was laughing.

He looked almost like a sparkly fairy had puked on him. I could only assume that the girls had ganged up on him, since he did like to keep his macho image. He had Rosa's pink Princess Ariel blanket tied around his waist. A purple taffeta tutu had been jammed onto his black hair. His lips were bright red, and his cheeks were pink and glittery. Even his nails were sparkly pink! He was also wearing necklaces, rings, and bracelets.

As I watched, trying not to reveal my presence, Jesse lifted a tea cup to his mouth. "Daddy!" Rosalinda exclaimed. "You have to have your pinky up! Like this!" And then she demonstrated.

I lost it when Jesse copied her. I bent over, laughing so hard it hurt. Tears were streaking down my face.

Jesse looked over at me. "I was overpowered," he said weakly.

That just made me laugh even harder. This was priceless! I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone. I had to get a picture of this. Jesse saw what I was doing and, having guessed correctly that I was going to humiliate him, lurched to his feet. "Susannah, don't –"

"Girls, keep him there," I guffawed.

Smirking, the twins tackled him, knocking him to the ground. Yep, they were definitely my kids. They each sat on one of his arms. Teresa and Rosa sat on his legs. They had him pinned down.

Carlos, not wanting to be left out of the fun, ran over. He sat right on his father's cheek. Then he giggled into his hands. "Daddy. I fawt."

"I had noticed, son," Jesse mumbled.

Finally, I got my cell phone out. I snapped a few pictures. I quickly texted them to Gina and CeeCee, because I knew he would try to delete them. Then I smiled at my family. "Okay, kids, you can let him up now. I got what I needed."

The girls climbed off, while Car just giggled some more, wiggling his little butt. In Jesse's face. Jesse lifted him off of his cheek, crinkling his nose. "This boy needs a diaper change."

He sat Carlos on the ground and got to his feet. He approached me. Normally, I would have found that intimidating. But…He was covered in pink and glitter! I couldn't take him seriously, even if he did look a little pissed.

Still, I took a few steps back, trying to smother my snickers.

"Give me the phone, Susannah."

No _querida_ for me. Not tonight. Oh, well. I shook my head. He held out his hand, wiggling those brown fingers of his. "Susannah."

"No."

He lunged forward, so quickly I couldn't stop him, and snatched it from my hand. He held it above his head, deleting the pictures, as I tried to jump and get it back.

"That won't do you any good," I told him, when I couldn't get the phone back. "I already texted them to Gina and CeeCee."

As if he didn't believe me, he checked my text history. Then he groaned and narrowed his eyes at me. "I will get you back for this."

**Suze: Jesse!**

**Jesse: Yes, **_**querida**_**?**

**Suze: What did you do? **

**Jesse: I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about.**

**Suze: Oh, really? Well, you know what I think? I think you're a liar. Do you know what Carlos did to my face? He drew on it. While I was asleep.**

**Jesse: I fail to see how this is connected to me, Susannah.**

**Suze: When I asked him why he did it, he said that **_**Daddy**_** told him it would be funny.**

**Jesse: (trying not to smirk) Did he now?**

**Suze: Do you know what else he said? He said that **_**Daddy**_** took pictures of it, and that **_**Daddy**_** was going to send out the pictures. Do you want to know what I think?**

**Jesse: Not particularly. But I am sure that you will tell me whether I want you to or not.**

**Suze: I think that **_**Daddy**_** is a dead man. Again.**


	24. Chapter 24

**Jesse is thirty-six, and Suze is now thirty-one. Teresa is eleven. Esmeralda and Estela are nine. Matthew is eight. Nathaniel is eight. Addison is eight. Rosalinda is seven. Anthony is five. Aubrey is five. Jasmine is three. Carlos is three. And Abigail is two years and ten months.**

I set down the last box in the living room, and looked around. Our new house was pretty big. Like the house Mom and Andy had bought, it had been in bad shape when we bought it. But Andy and the company he worked for fixed that. Now it was pretty nice. And the best part? Jesse's office, which was on the top floor, had a little bit of porch that we could sit on whenever we wanted, because our front porch had a high roof that reached right under the window. Jesse and I could have our dorky star-gazing nights again. Although, it would have been more romantic if the roof had been under our bedroom window, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

It was three stories, with seven bedrooms. Each child had their own room, even the twins. But Esmeralda and Estela's rooms were connected with a small bathroom that they shared. That had been one of the other selling points for Jesse and me, besides the porch roof. We wanted the twins to be able to each have their own space, but we also knew how close they were. We knew they'd like being able to have connected rooms.

I smiled at Rosalinda, who was coming down the stairs to get more of her boxes. She and the rest of the girls had their rooms upstairs. Carlos', as well as mine and Jesse's, was downstairs. "You're going to be eight next week, Rosa. Do you want to celebrate your birthday in the new house?"

She shrugged. "I guess." She picked up two more boxes and disappeared back upstairs.

Jesse came into the room only a moment later, carrying a hammer. I frowned at him. "What are you doing?"

He didn't even look at me when he answered, "I need to assemble the new entertainment center before we can put anything on it, Susannah."

"I know that, but…Where's Carlos?"

He looked at me sharply. "I thought he was with you."

"No. _I_ thought he was with _you_."

"Carlos!" we both called out. Who knew what kind of trouble that boy was getting into? He had just turned three the month before! And he was a very curious three-year-old – until he was around new people. Then he tried to pretend not to even exist. But the rest of the time, he was trouble city if somebody didn't keep a constant eye on him. "Carlos!"

I heard a small giggle, but couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from. I narrowed my eyes. "Carlos Luciano de Silva!" He had to be somewhere fairly close by.

The giggle sounded again. Jesse and I exchanged a look. "The Cubby," we said together. Under the stairs was a very small storage space – just about the perfect size for a little boy – that the kids had all dubbed The Cubby. The girls didn't really care about it, but Carlos seemed to find it fascinating.

Together, we approached it. I opened the door and said, "Gotcha!"

Carlos shrieked.

I reached in and carefully pulled him out. "What were you doing in there, you silly boy?"

"Hiding."

"From me and Daddy?" He nodded, a grin lighting up his little face. "Why?"

He shrugged his small shoulders, giggling. He was a very giggly child. He seemed to find just about everything funny. "It fun, Mommy!"

I shook my head. "If you say so, bud. Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

He shook his head again, vehemently this time. "No, Mommy!"

"Okay, if you say so." I held my hands up in surrender before he could throw a huge fit about how he didn't have to use the bathroom. I knew that he would have to go sooner or later, and he probably wouldn't say anything about it. I would have to ask to get him to go. To go the bathroom _in_ the bathroom, I mean. He tended to still think of his pull-ups as a toilet. "Do you want Mommy to help you get your bedroom all set up?"

"Dis be my woom?" he asked, pointing to The Cubby.

I shook my head again. "No, sorry."

"Oh," he said, sounding disappointed. "It too smaw? Dat why?"

"It's way too small, buddy. Come on, let's get your stuff."

We went into the living room. Carlos ran straight for the biggest box with his name on it. He couldn't read or anything, but he did know how to recognize his name. I chuckled. "Car, try this smaller one. I'll get that one."

"No. I do it. I big boy."

He started pushing the box toward his bedroom, grunting. Jesse, beside me, looked like he was struggling not to laugh. He caught my eye and said proudly, "That's my boy."

"He sure is. He's stubborn as hell."

"Susannah, he inherited that from you."

I put my hands on my hands. "He did not. He inherited from _you_."

"Mom, Dad," Teresa interrupted, standing at the top of the stairs. "He inherited it from both of you. So don't start fighting about it." Then she disappeared back into her room.

I laughed. "I think we just got told by our daughter. Wow."

"Perhaps she is right, _querida_."

I smiled and kissed his lips. "I love it when you call me that. Now, get to work on that entertainment center!" I commanded, smacking his tush lightly before getting two more of Carlos' boxes.

He had made it to the door of his room by the time I got there. "Good job, Car. You're such a strong boy."

He smiled proudly, puffing out his little chest.

We got into his room, where his bed had already been set up. We started unpacking.

Pretty soon, he was dancing around, holding the front of his cargo shorts.

"Carlos." He looked at me. "Why are you doing that?" I asked. "Do you need to go potty?"

He didn't answer, which I knew meant that he did. And if he didn't get in there soon, he'd pee his pants. He was _kind of_ getting the whole potty-training thing. But he would try to hold it for as long as he could, and then he'd get in there too late. It had happened many times before. Or he would forget that he had to go to the bathroom, and before I knew it, he had wet his pants.

"Bathroom, Carlos. Now," I commanded.

"Mommy," he whined.

"Go."

He went, sulking. He was just about the cutest thing to walk this planet, but he was a brat, too.

I kept unpacking, keeping an ear open for my son. He liked to use the bathroom by himself, and he usually did a good job. But every now and then, he needed help.

I heard his stool scrape across the tile, then the water turned on. "Did you flush?" I called.

"Um," he said, and then the sound of the toilet flushing could be heard. "Yes! Uh-oh. Oopsies!"

I sighed. Leave it to Carlos to somehow break or clog the toilet the day we move in.

**Jesse: Susannah, I think we need to do something about The Cubby. Carlos is in there almost every minute of the day.**

**Suze: I know. I can't keep him out of it. Hey, what if we put a fake spider in there? I bet he'd never go near it again.**

**Jesse: (disapprovingly) Susannah, that would be just cruel. Carlos is terrified of spiders.**

**Suze: He needs to face his fears at some point, Jesse.**

**Jesse: Not at three-and-a-half years old.**

**Suze: Fine. Then you figure out some way to keep him out of it. Because I don't know what to do.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Jesse is thirty-seven, and Suze is now thirty-two. Teresa is twelve. Esmeralda and Estela are ten. Matthew is nine. Nathaniel is nine. Addison is nine. Rosalinda is nine. Anthony is six. Aubrey is six. Jasmine is four. Carlos is four. And Abigail is three.**

I closed the fridge, after checking on Rosa's cake. I was probably going to give it to them in about an hour or so. At the moment, she was playing outside with her friends.

Jesse came into the kitchen, carrying the mail. "You have a letter here from Jack," he told me.

"Ooh," I said, taking it from him. It had been a while since I'd heard from Jack. We were both just so busy. "He told me a few months ago that his wife, Lillian, is pregnant. I think she'd be about six months by now. Maybe they found out what they're having."

I quickly opened the letter and quickly read it. I grinned. "And? What does Jack have to say?"

"He says that they're having a little boy. They're going to name him Jonathan Stuart. You know, I'm surprised that they got pregnant only three years into their marriage. I always thought they'd be the wait-until-you're-thirty types. Then again, I thought the same thing of Paul, and Gina."

"And you were wrong about them."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Hey, watch it. Do you know where Teresa is?" I asked him, slipping the letter back into its envelope. "I haven't seen her all day."

"She is in her room. She said that she had a project for school that she's working on, and she thought it would take her all day. She asked not to be disturbed so she could concentrate."

I froze, my eyes widening. "And you believed that? She's _my_ daughter! Jesse, do you know how old I was when I first snuck out? _Eleven_. She's twelve. And do you know what excuse I used? A school project."

His dark eyes widened. "_Nombre de_ – Teresa!"

The two of us rushed up the stairs. We got to Teresa's room just as she opened the door slightly. "What are you yelling about, Dad?"

"What are you doing, sweetie?" I asked.

She scowled. "I already told Dad. I've got a school project I'm working on."

She started to close her door, but I reached out and stopped her. Jesse said a swear word in Spanish, under his breath. "You have a boy in there, don't you?" he demanded.

She rolled her eyes, huffing. "No, Dad! Gosh!" She slammed the door and locked it.

Ah, crap. She was being defensive, which was never a good sign. Jesse knocked quietly on the door. "Teresa, open the door. We just want to talk."

And catch the boy before he could escape out the window. Oh, wait, her windows aren't easy to escape out of. Trust me, I tried once. What? I was dealing with a particularly nasty ghost, and I'd needed a quick way out of the house. Teresa's windows were not it. And I've had plenty of practice climbing out of windows.

Silence met Jesse's statement.

"Teresa Isabel de Silva. Now."

The door unlocked, and then I heard Resa plop herself onto her bed. Exchanging a look, Jesse and I opened the door and went it. We didn't see any open windows, or hear anything that might have been a boy hiding.

Thank goodness.

Resa was curled in the center of her bed, a pillow clutched to her stomach.

"Resa, baby, what's wrong?" I asked, moving toward her.

She ran the back of her hand across her nose, sniffling. "I hurt."

"Where?"

She moved the pillow and pointed to her abdomen. "And…I started bleeding today. I knew it would happen soon, but I didn't know it would hurt so bad."

I pulled her into a hug, stroking her hair. "Oh, baby." We had talked, a few months ago, about the chance of her starting her period soon. She was growing up so much.

Jesse sat beside me. Being a doctor, and having grown up with five sisters, this kind of thing didn't really bother him. "Teresa," he said softly. "Teresa, look at me."

She did.

He smiled and kissed her forehead. "_Teresa, se mejorara. Un ciclos menstruales de la mujer siempre serán dolorosos, pero consiguen un poco mejor. Recuerde solo que puede venir a su madre y a yo para algo. Usted no debe tener miedo ni avergonzó. Somos sus padres. Le adoramos, Teresa, y nosotros harán lo que nosotros podemos para ayudarie_."

I had no idea what he was saying, but I knew that Resa did. She spoke Spanish fluently, as did all of her sisters, and Carlos was getting there, and she found it comforting when her dad spoke to her in Spanish in stressful times. I let them go at it, since it usually helped her.

She nodded. "_Gracias, el Padre._"

He smiled. He was such a good father, he really was. " _¿Ahora, desea usted hablar de ello? Quizas lo puedo ayudar a sentirse mejor_."

She shrugged. "_Supongo_."

Jesse opened his mouth to say something else, and that's when we heard two voices scream, "Carlos!"

I sighed. "I'll take care of it." I stood up just as Carlos raced past, laughing maniacally. I hurried into the hall and grabbed him, lifting him into my arms.

Esmeralda and Estela, who had been hot on his tail, skidded to a stop and folded their arms. "Mom," Estela began.

"Carlos went into our rooms –"

"With_out_ asking. And he took our make-up."

Jesse and I allowed the twins to wear a little bit of make-up. Pretty much just eyeshadow and lip gloss. And only light colors. They did have some glitter that they loved to put on their eyes.

I looked down at Carlos, who was _covered_ in glitter. He had tried to paint his nails, too, it looked like. He had nail polish all over his little fingers.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Carlos? You know you're not supposed to go into your sisters' rooms or mess with their stuff without asking."

He smiled at me, batting his eyelashes. "I so pwetty!"

"Jesse!" I called loudly, trying not to panic. "You need to do something manly with your son! And soon!"

**Jesse: Carlos! Come back here!**

**Carlos: Daddy, wook! I be a big monstuh!**

**Jesse: Carlos, we need to take our seats. Come on, son.**

**Carlos: Okay!**

**Jesse: (lifting Carlos into his arms) Our seats are this way.**

**Carlos: Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!**

**Jesse: What?**

**Carlos: I want candy!**

**Jesse: Carlos, I don't think -**

**Carlos: Dad-dy! Pwetty, pwetty pwease? I be weal good, I pwomise. **

**Jesse: (sighing) All right. You can have some candy. But Carlos, if I buy you a small amount of candy, you have to sit extra still and quiet during the football game. Do you understand?**

**Carlos: (nodding enthusiastically) Okay!**

**Jesse: (muttering to himself) I am going to regret this later. Susannah will be furious if I bring this child home hyper.**


	26. Chapter 26

**Jesse is thirty-seven, and Suze is thirty-three. Teresa is thirteen. Esmeralda and Estela are eleven. Matthew is ten. Nathaniel is nine. Addison is nine. Rosalinda is nine. Anthony is six. Aubrey is six. Jasmine is four. Carlos is four. Abigail is four. Jonathan is three months.**

I dodged the ghost's fist, taking a few steps back. This was so _not_ what I needed today. Seriously. I had to pick up Rosalinda and Carlos from my mom in an hour, and then I had to get the older three girls from school. And I still hadn't called Brad to wish him a happy birthday. Not that I actually _cared_ if he had a good birthday or not. And he was in Vegas with his girlfriend, so he probably wouldn't even answer his phone.

Ew. I did not need to think about that. Now I had nasty images running through my head.

And then, besides all that, Paul and Selma and Addison were supposed to stop by for dinner tonight. Which was great. I was excited for them to come over. Except that I wasn't going to be able to make the casserole that I'd wanted to, because this jerk smashed my oven. No, I am not kidding. He kicked it - twice - and punched it. Oh, and before that, he through a chair at it. Granted, he was trying to do all of that stuff to _me_ and I just happened to get out of the way barely in time, but still. He ruined my oven! So now I was going to have to try to figure something else out for the meal. I guess I could always make a soup. I had a recipe for a taco soup that Jesse absolutely loved. I could make that, and then we could have -

"Whoa," I said, as something came hurtling toward my head. Something big that looked it would hurt like a son of a gun if it hit me. I ducked, and the pot clattered against the floor. I narrowed my eyes at the ghost in front of me. Again, I didn't need to deal with this. I had way too much crap going on.

And this stupid dead guy just wouldn't move on. I was probably going to have to take a little trip to the Shadowland soon, which did not excite me at all. He was starting to really piss me off, though. And I was ready for him to be gone.

"How is it," I wanted to know, as I sank my fist into his solar plexus, "that a woman in her early thirties is able to kick the butt of a high school quarterback? Oh, wait. I know. It's because you're _dead_."

Well, that wasn't the reason. I mean, come on. Most ghosts were actually pretty strong. The reason was because he was a wimp. He didn't understand just how strong he really was. Which was why he had resorted mostly to throwing stuff at me. But I wanted him to understand that he didn't belong here anymore. He needed to _go_.

"Bi –" he started to snarl, but I punched him in the face. If he'd been alive, there would have been a large amount of blood. I still managed to break his nose, though it would right itself pretty quick. But now he was _really_ ticked off at me.

"You better not have been about to say what I think you were going to say," I muttered.

He swung at me. As he did, I grabbed his fist and thought of the Shadowland. Once there, I shoved him in the direction of the gatekeeper, who looked slightly annoyed. That was always how he looked when I showed up. He didn't really like it that I came here, even on the rare occasions that I have brought somebody by. I swear it didn't happen very often. Hey, it wasn't _my_ fault some of these stupid ghosts were too damn stubborn to listen to me. "He needs to find a new home," I said, and shifted back to my own home.

I looked at the disaster in the kitchen, and grunted. I'd worry about it later. Instead, I grabbed my keys and headed to my mom's house.

"Hey," I greeted, knocking as I opened the door. "Sorry I'm a little early."

"Susie, what happened?" my mother asked, looking at my ruffled appearance.

I briefly glanced down. I guess I did kind of look like a mess. "Oh, I just got into a little argument with someone who didn't want to see the light and move on. Where are the kids?"

"Rosalinda is in the den, watching a movie. Andy and Carlos are around here somewhere. I think they're playing some sort of tag game."

"Oh." I sat on the couch, sighing.

"Gampa!" I heard my son yell, and then he ran into the room. He looked behind him, giggling. He tripped just a bit, almost falling flat on his face.

I reached out and grabbed him, pulling him into my lap. "What are you doing, buddy?"

"Mommy!" he squealed. "Mommy, Gampa gonna eat me!"

Andy came roaring into the room. Carlos shrieked like a banshee, curling into me. Before anything else could happen, though, the phone rang. Andy sighed, and answered it.

"So Rosa said earlier that you were going to have the Slaters over for dinner tonight?"

"Yeah. Well, just Paul, Selma, and Addison. Jack and Lillian took their little boy to San Francisco to visit Lillian's parents. Rosa always gets excited when the Slaters visit. She and Addison get along really well, and love to hang out at school. Which is actually surprising because Rosa is pretty shy, and Addy is _very_ outgoing. I guess they even each other –"

"You did _what_, Bradley?" Andy exclaimed. Then he said disgustedly, "Call me when you're sober."

He hung up, shaking his head. "I can't believe that boy."

I chuckled. "Andy, it's Brad. In Vegas. So, what'd he do? Gamble away all his money?" That wouldn't surprise me. Like I said, it was Brad.

"He got married."

My jaw dropped. "He did _what_? Brad? _Brad_ got married? To _who_?"

"Elizabeth."

"Liz actually married him? Was she _drunk_?"

Andy muttered, "Probably."

My mom gave us both a stern look. "Liz loves Brad. They've been together for a while now."

"That's no reason to make rash decisions!"

"Maybe they just felt it was the right thing to do."

Andy and I both snorted. "They were drunk," we said together.

**Brad: We were not drunk.**

**Andy: Really? Then how come, when you called me, you told me that you and Elizabeth were sitting in a pool of fairy dust?**

**Brad: (blushing) Okay, maybe we were a little drunk when we got married.**

**Andy: A little? I'd call that more than a little, Bradley.**

**Brad: Dad! That was _after_ we got married. What's the big deal? I thought you all would be happy for me. I finally tied the knot. And you guys never thought it would happen.**

**Suze: Well, I certainly didn't.**

**Brad: Shut up, Suze. Nobody asked you.**

**Jesse: Susannah, leave your brother alone.**

**Brad: Yeah, what he said.**

**Andy: I want you to be happy. But I also want you to not make such huge decisions like that without really thinking it through.**

**Brad: I did think it through. We've been planning to get married for a while now. It just worked out that we got married in Vegas. And I really do love Liz, so can everybody back off now?**


	27. Chapter 27

**Jesse is thirty-eight, and Suze is thirty-three. Teresa is thirteen. Esmeralda and Estela are twelve. Matthew is eleven. Nathaniel is ten. Addison is ten. Rosalinda is ten. Anthony is seven. Aubrey is seven. Jasmine is five. Carlos is five. Abigail is four. And Jonathan is one year.**

Gina lifted Jasmine into her arms, smirking as she watched Jesse put stitches into my left arm. I was lucky he had everything he needed right at home. No hospitals for me. He had a box of emergency medical supplies in our bathroom. He _said_ it was in case any of the kids got hurt.

Bull.

I knew it was for me.

He would never admit it, though.

"I told you it was stupid," Gina said. Her voice was smug. For some insane reason, she was finding this whole situation extremely funny. "But did you listen to me? No. Of course not. You just had to try to catch the murderer yourself, didn't you? And in typical Suze fashion, you got hurt doing it."

I glared at her. "Would you just shut up already? I was able to get him arrested, wasn't I? What's the big deal? Ouch!" I yelped, as my husband did something particularly painful with that freaking _awl_ of his.

"I am sorry, _querida_. Did that hurt?"

He was sorry my ass. I'd bet he did it on purpose. "Dang right it hurt."

"Susannah, you are lucky that he didn't cut the main artery in your arm. If he had, you'd be a bit dead now."

Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing, to antagonize the person with the _needle_ in my arm. But that's what I did. Hey, I've done a lot of stupid things in my life. Why stop now? "Oh, just a bit dead, huh? I wonder what that's like, to be just a bit dead and not fully dead. Would it be like that one movie, with Reese Witherspoon? Where she's in a coma, and –"

"Shut up," my husband growled.

I felt my jaw drop. I was stunned, I really was. In our fifteen years of marriage, and eighteen years together, I don't think I had ever heard him say those two words. He just didn't _talk_ like that!

Gina laughed. Whether at what Jesse said, or the look on my face, I don't know. "Wow. I'll bet that's a first."

"Why are you even here?" I snapped.

"Yeah, totally feeling the love. I stopped by to see if you two wanted me to take the kids over to my place. Since it is your anniversary and all."

I gulped, glancing at my husband. He was still really pissed at me, that I had gotten myself hurt and nearly killed. Again. It would probably be better _not_ to be alone with him. At least if the kids were home, I could use them as a sort of barrier between myself and my husband. They would keep me safe from his anger. Maybe. "Um, you know what? We're good. We didn't really plan anything, so –"

"That would be wonderful, Gina," Jesse cut in, finishing the final stitch. He smiled at me, but it wasn't a warm smile. Oh no, it was a smile that told me I was in for it. I was _so_ in for it. "Teresa has her softball practice in an hour, though. Would you be willing to drop her off for that? I really would like a chance to spend some time alone with my wife."

"Totally."

No! What was she doing? She had to know that I was going to get raked over the coals. Was she trying to get me killed? "Really, Gina. You don't –"

"And Esmeralda and Estela are spending the night with a friend," he continued, as if I wasn't even in the room. I was in so much trouble, it wasn't even funny. "Carlos is just getting over an ear infection, so he will most likely be a little irritable. Let me put together a bag for him."

"Do you want me to keep them overnight?"

"If you'd like to."

I panicked. All night? Along with Jesse? Not a good thing when he was mad at me! I was so dead. "Gina, seriously. You don't have to do this. We're fine. The kids don't have to stay the night."

She looked at me and smirked. She knew exactly what she was doing to me. "Sure, I'd like to keep them overnight," she said to my husband. "Then you and Suze can have plenty of quality time together. _Alone_."

I groaned.

Jesse ignored me, as usual, and called out, "Teresa! Rosalinda! Carlos!"

He informed them of the plan, and instructed them each to pack an overnight bag, and for Teresa to make sure that she had all of her softball stuff. He then went to help Carlos, who was likely to fill his bag with nothing but toys if left to his own devices.

"What are you doing?" I hissed to Gina.

"You're an idiot," was all that she responded.

"Are you trying to get me killed? He's going to _kill_ me if you leave me alone with him."

She rolled her eyes. "No, he won't. And don't be so stupid next time."

Before I knew it, the kids and Gina were gone. The house was almost empty, and eerily quiet. Jesse had left the kitchen, so I very carefully got up and started sneaking to our bedroom. Maybe, I could hide from him. Maybe –

"And just where do you think you're going, Susannah?"

I froze. Crap! I'd been caught. "I'm a little tired, so I think –"

"It's two o'clock in the afternoon. You are not tired. You are trying to avoid the issue at hand. Come in here and sit down so we can talk about this."

"I don't want to talk. My…throat is, uh, dry."

"Susannah."

Rolling my eyes, I stomped back down the stairs. I plopped myself onto the couch, being careful not to bump my injured arm.

And then Jesse started reaming into me.

I was going to let him rant himself out, I really was. I mean, I absolutely loved to get scolded by my own husband. Really. It was my favorite pastime. But after ten minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't understand most of what he was saying because of course it was in Spanish. And I didn't want to fight with him. I just wanted to put this whole little incident behind us and forget all about it. So I got to my feet and kissed him fiercely, just wanting to shut him up.

He pulled back, as I'd expected he would. "Susannah," he warned. I think he knew what I was trying to do. Scratch that. He knew exactly what I was trying to do. He always did.

I ignored him and kissed him again, pushing my body as close to his as I could possibly get it. I slowly moved my lips to his neck, his weak spot.

He didn't push me away this time. Good. That was progress. I was _so_ glad that the kids weren't home, and that Jesse had locked the door behind Gina. We didn't need anybody walking in on this very, uh, _private_ moment. Honestly, I don't know how we made it to our bedroom.

Many hours later, we lay spooned together in bed, both of us dozing a bit even though it was only about six o'clock. "Susannah," he murmured into my hair, "we are still going to discuss what you did earlier."

Damn. It didn't work.

**Gina: Suze, that's a stupid plan.**

**Suze: I'll be fine.**

**Gina: Isn't that what you said about that Meducci kid? And where did that get you? That's right, in the hospital.**

**Suze: It's different this time.**

**Gina: Really? How?**

**Suze: I'm older, wiser, more experienced. I can handle this. No big deal. What's one murderer? I've dealt with tons of them. Okay, about four or so. But still. Don't worry about me.**

**Gina: Simon, I swear, if you get yourself killed, I'm going to find a way to bring you back and kill you again.**

**Suze: I'll be fine. And I've told you not to call me Simon anymore.**

**Gina: I'm going to enjoy laughing in your face when you get hurt. I really am.**

**Suze: Whatever.**


End file.
